Here lies the tablet graven in the past,
Clear-charactered and firm and fresh of line.
See, not a word is gone; and yet how fast
The secret no man living may divine!
What did he choose for witness in the grave?
A record of his glory on the earth?
The wail of friends? The Pæans of the brave?
The sacred promise of the second birth?
The tombs of ancient Greeks in Sicily
Are sown with slender discs of graven gold
Filled with the praise of Death: “Thrice happy he
Wrapt in the milk-soft sleep of dreams untold!”
They sleep their patient sleep in altered lands,
The golden promise in their fleshless hands.
_Venetian Nocturne._
Down the narrow Calle where the moonlight cannot enter,
The houses are so high;
Silent and alone we pierced the night’s dim core and centre—
Only you and I.
Clear and sad our footsteps rang along the hollow pavement,
Sounding like a bell;
Sounding like a voice that cries to souls in Life’s enslavement,
“There is Death as well!”
Down the narrow dark we went, until a sudden whiteness
Made us hold our breath;
All the white Salute towers and domes in moonlit brightness,—
Ah! could this be Death?
[Illustration]
_The Dead Friend._