Earth-Bound

Ghosts? Love would fain believe,Earth being so fair, the dead might wish to return!Is it so strange if, even in heaven, they yearnFor the May-time and the dreams it used to give?

Through dark abysms of Space,From strange new spheres where Death has called them nowMay they not, with a crown on every brow,Still cry to the loved earth's lost familiar face?

We two, love, we should comeSeeking a little refuge from the lightOf the blinding terrible star-sown Infinite,Seeking some sheltering roof, some four-walled home,

From that too high, too wideCommunion with the universe and God,How glad to creep back to some lane we trodHemmed in with a hawthorn hedge on either side.

Fresh from death's boundless birth,How fond the circled vision of the seaWould seem to souls tired of Infinity,How kind the soft blue boundaries of earth,

How rich the nodding sprayOf pale green leaves that made the sapphire deepA background to the dreams of that brief sleepWe called our life when heaven was far away.

How strange would be the sightOf the little towns and twisted streets again,Where all the hurrying works and ways of menWould seem a children's game for our delight.

What boundless heaven could giveThis joy in the strait austere restraints of earth,Whereof the dead have felt the immortal dearthWho look upon God's face and cannot live?

Our ghosts would clutch at flowersAs drowning men at straws, for fear the seaShould sweep them back to God's Eternity,Still clinging to the day that once was ours.

No more with fevered brainPlunging across the gulfs of Space and TimeWould we revisit this our earthly climeWe two, if we could ever come again;

Not as we came of old,But reverencing the flesh we now despiseAnd gazing out with consecrated eyes,Each of us glad of the other's hand to hold.

So we should wander nighOur mortal home, and see its little roofKeeping the deep eternal night aloofAnd yielding us a refuge from the sky.

We should steal in, once more,Under the cloudy lilac at the gate,Up the walled garden, then with hearts elateForget the stars and close our cottage door.

Oh then, as children useTo make themselves a little hiding-place,We would rejoice in narrowness of space,And God should give us nothing more to lose.

How good it all would seemTo souls that from the æonian ebb and flowCame down to hear once more the to and froSwing o' the clock dictate its hourly theme.

How dear the strange recallFrom vast antiphonies of joy and painBeyond the grave, to these old books again,That cosy lamp, those pictures on the wall.

Home! Home! The old desire!We would shut out the innumerable skies,Draw close the curtains, then with patient eyesBend o'er the hearth; laugh at our memories,Or watch them crumbling in the crimson fire.