We are not strangers. 'T is the world was strange,
That rude antique parade of earth and sky,
That foolish pageant of mortality
And weary round of change.
Till this glad moment thou hast lived in dreams,
Nursed in a fable, catechised to croon
The empty science of a sun and moon
That with their dubious beams
Light the huge dusky stage of all that seems.
Believe it not, my own. Awake, depart
Out of the shades of hell,
Trusting the sacred spell
That falls upon thy strong perplexed heart,
The joy ineffable,
The nameless premonition and dire pang
Of love. Be free at last,
Free as the hopes that from thy sorrow sprang
Forget the horror of the tyrant past,
Forget the gods, forget
The baleful shadow on the present cast
By all that is not yet.
Arise and follow me. Say not I seem
A shadow among shades,
A dryad's laugh amid the windy glades,
A swimmer's body guessed beneath the stream
This is the dawn of day,
Thy dream-oppressed vision breaking through
Its icy hood of clay
And plunging deep into the balmy blue.
Bid thy vain cares adieu
And say farewell to earth, thy foster-mother.
She hath befooled thee long,
And fondly thought to smother
The sweet and cruel laughter of my song
Which the stars sing together, and the throng
Of seraphs ever shout to one another.
Come, heaven-chosen brother,
Dear kinsman, come along.