  I lay upon the headland-height, and listened To the incessant sobbing of the sea In caverns under me, And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened, Until the rolling meadows of amethyst Melted away in mist. Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started; For round about me all the sunny capes Seemed peopled with the shapes Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams On faces seen in dreams. A moment only, and the light and glory Faded away, and the disconsolate shore Stood lonely as before; And the wild roses of the promontory Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed Their petals of pale red. There was an old belief that in the embers Of all things their primordial form exists, And cunning alchemists Could recreate the rose with all its members From its own ashes, but without the bloom, Without the lost perfume. Ah, me! what wonder-working, occult science Can from the ashes in our hearts once more The rose of youth restore? What craft of alchemy can bid defiance To time and change, and for a single hour Renew this phantom-flower? "Oh, give me back," I cried, "the vanished splendors, The breath of morn, and the exultant strife, When the swift stream of life Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap Into the unknown deep!" And the sea answered, with a lamentation, Like some old prophet wailing, and it said, "Alas! thy youth is dead! It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation, In the dark places with the dead of old It lies forever cold!" Then said I, "From its consecrated cerements I will not drag this sacred dust again, Only to give me pain; But, still remembering all the lost endearments, Go on my way, like one who looks before, And turns to weep no more." Into what land of harvests, what plantations Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow Of sunsets burning low; Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations Light up the spacious avenues between This world and the unseen! Amid what friendly greetings and caresses, What households, though not alien, yet not mine, What bowers of rest divine; To what temptations in lone wildernesses, What famine of the heart, what pain and loss, The bearing of what cross! I do not know; nor will I vainly question Those pages of the mystic book which hold The story still untold, But without rash conjecture or suggestion Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed, Until "The End" I read. |
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