In Memoriam

Great silent heart! These barren drops of grief
Are not for you, attained unto your rest;
This sterile salt upon the withered leaf
Of love, is mine⁠—mine the dark burial guest.

Far, far within that deep, untroubled sea
We watched together, walking on the sands,
Your soul has melted⁠—painless, silent, free;
Mine the wrung heart, mine the clasped, useless hands.

Into the whirl of life, where none remember,
I bear your image, ever unforgot;
The “Whip-poor-will,” still “wailing in December,”
Cries the same cry⁠—cries, cries, and ceases not.

The future years with all their waves of faces
Roll shoreward singing the great undertone;
Yours is not there;⁠—in the old, well-loved places
I look, and pass, and watch the sea alone.

Alone along the gleaming, white sea-shore,
The sea-spume spraying thick around my head,
Through all the beat of waves and winds that roar,
I go, remembering that you are dead.

That you are dead, and nowhere is there one
Like unto you;⁠—and nowhere Love leaps Death;⁠—
And nowhere may the broken race be run;⁠—
Nowhere unsealed the seal that none gainsaith.

Yet in my ear that deep, sweet undertone
Grows deeper, sweeter, solemner to me⁠—
Dreaming your dreams, watching the light that shone
So whitely to you, yonder, on the sea.

Your voice is there, there in the great life-sound⁠—
Your eyes are there, out there, within the light;
Your heart, within the pulsing Race-heart drowned,
Beats in the immortality of Right.

O Life, I love you for the love of him
Who showed me all your glory and your pain!
“Unto Nirvana”⁠—so the deep tones sing⁠—
And there⁠—and there⁠—we⁠—shall⁠—be⁠—one⁠—again.