Moonrise Over Tyringham

NOW the high holocaust of hours is done,And all the west empurpled with their death,How swift oblivion drinks the fallen sun,How little while the dusk remembereth!

Though some there were, proud hours that marched in mail,And took the morning on auspicious crest,Crying to fortune "Back, for I prevail!"--Yet now they lie disfeatured with the rest;

And some that stole so soft on destinyMethought they had surprised her to a smile;But these fled frozen when she turned to see,And moaned and muttered through my heart awhile.

But now the day is emptied of them all,And night absorbs their life-blood at a draught;And so my life lies, as the gods let fallAn empty cup from which their lips have quaffed.

Yet see--night is not . . . by translucent ways,Up the grey void of autumn afternoonSteals a mild crescent, charioted in haze,And all the air is merciful as June.

The lake is a forgotten streak of dayThat trembles through the hemlocks' darkling bars,And still, my heart, still some divine delayUpon the threshold holds the earliest stars.

O pale equivocal hour, whose suppliant feetHaunt the mute reaches of the sleeping wind,Art thou a watcher stealing to entreatPrayer and sepulture for thy fallen kind?

Poor plaintive waif of a predestined race,Their ruin gapes for thee. Why linger here?Go hence in silence. Veil thine orphaned face,Lest I should look on it and call it dear.

For if I love thee thou wilt sooner die;Some sudden ruin will plunge upon thy head,Midnight will fall from the revengeful skyAnd hurl thee down among thy shuddering dead.

Avert thine eyes. Lapse softly from my sight,Call not my name, nor heed if thine I crave,So shalt thou sink through mitigated nightAnd bathe thee in the all-effacing wave.

But upward still thy perilous footsteps fareAlong a high-hung heaven drenched in light,Dilating on a tide of crystal airThat floods the dark hills to their utmost height.

Strange hour, is this thy waning face that leansOut of mid-heaven and makes my soul its glass?What victory is imaged there? What meansThy tarrying smile? Oh, veil thy lips and pass.

Nay . . . pause and let me name thee! For I see,O with what flooding ecstasy of light,Strange hour that wilt not loose thy hold on me,Thou'rt not day's latest, but the first of night!

And after thee the gold-foot stars come thick,From hand to hand they toss the flying fire,Till all the zenith with their dance is quickAbout the wheeling music of the Lyre.

Dread hour that lead'st the immemorial round,With lifted torch revealing one by oneThe thronging splendours that the day held bound,And how each blue abyss enshrines its sun--

Be thou the image of a thought that faresForth from itself, and flings its ray ahead,Leaping the barriers of ephemeral cares,To where our lives are but the ages' tread,

And let this year be, not the last of youth,But first--like thee!--of some new train of hours,If more remote from hope, yet nearer truth,And kin to the unpetitionable powers.