So swift the hours are
Unto the time unproved:
Farewell my love unloving,
Farewell my love beloved!
What! are we not glad-hearted?
Is there no deed to do?
Is not all fear
And Spring-tide blossomed new?
The sails swell out above us,
The sea-ridge lifts the keel;
For They have called who love us,
Who bear the gifts that heal:
A crown for him that winneth,
A bed for him that fails,
A glory that
In never-dying tales.
Yet now the pain is
And the glad hand grips the sword,
Look on thy life
And deal out due award.
Think of the thankless morning,
The gifts of noon unused;
Think of the eve of scorning,
The night of prayer refused.
And yet.
The life before it,
Dost thou remember aught,
What terrors shivered o'er
Born from the hell of thought?
And this that cometh after:
How dost thou live, and
To meet its empty laughter,
To face its friendless care?
In fear didst thou desire,
At peace dost thou regret,
The wasting of the fire,
The tangling of the net.
Love came and gat fair greeting;
Love went; and left no shame.
Shall both the twilights
The summer sunlight blame?
What! cometh love and
Like the dark night's empty wind,
Because thy folly
The harvest of the blind?
Hast thou slain love with sorrow?
Have thy tears quenched the sun?
Nay even yet
Shall many a deed be done.
This twilight sea thou sailest,
Has it grown dim and
For that wherein thou failest,
And the story of thy lack?
Peace then! for thine old
Was born of Earth the kind,
And the sad tale thou art leaving Earth shall not leave behind.
Peace! for that joy
Whereon thou layest
Earth keepeth for a
For the day when this is old.
Thy soul and life shall perish,
And thy name as last night's wind;
But Earth the deed shall
That thou today shalt find.
And all thy joy and sorrow So great but yesterday,
So light a thing tomorrow,
Shall never pass away.
Lo! lo! the dawn-blink yonder,
The sunrise draweth nigh,
And men forget to
That they were born to die.
Then praise the deed that
Through the daylight and the mirth!
The tale that never
Whoso may dwell on earth.
