All flowers-but for one black blur of And round from all the world the voices earth Left by that closing chasm, thro' which the car Of dark Aïdoneus rising rapt thee hence. And here, my child, tho' folded in thine arms, came 'We know not, and we know not why we moan.' 'Where'? and I stared from every eaglepeak, I thridded the black heart of all the woods, I peer'd thro' tomb and cave, and in the storms I feel the deathless heart of motherhood Child, when thou wert gone, I envied human wives, and nested birds, Yea, the cubb'd lioness; went in search of thee Thro' many a palace, many a cot, and gave I saw the tiger in the ruin'd fane thee I saw not; and far on, and, following out A league of labyrinthine darkness, came On three gray heads beneath a gleaming rift. 'Where'? and I heard one voice from all the three Thy breast to ailing infants in the night, We know not, for we spin the lives of And set the mother waking in amaze To find her sick one whole; and forth again Among the wail of midnight winds, and cried, 'Where is my loved one? Wherefore do ye wail?' And out from all the night an answer shrill'd, We know not, and we know not why we wail.' I climb'd on all the cliffs of all the seas, And ask'd the waves that moan about the world 'Where? do ye make your moaning for my child ?' men, And not of Gods, and know not why we spin! There is a Fate beyond us.' Nothing knew. Last as the likeness of a dying man, Without his knowledge, from him flits to warn A far-off friendship that he comes no more, So he, the God of dreams, who heard my cry, Drew from thyself the likeness of thyself Without thy knowledge, and thy shadow past Once more the reaper in the gleam of Will see me by the landmark far away, content With them, who still are highest. Those gray heads, What meant they by their 'Fate beyond the Fates But younger kindlier Gods to bear us As we bore down the Gods before us? To quench, not hurl the thunderbolt, to Not spread the plague, the famine; Gods indeed, To send the noon into the night and The sunless halls of Hades into Heaven? The bird, and lost in utter grief I fail'd Rain-rotten died the wheat, the barley- And made themselves as Gods against Then He, the brother of this Darkness, Who still is highest, glancing from his the fear Of Death and Hell; and thou that hast from men, As Queen of Death, that worship which is Fear, Henceforth, as having risen from out the Shalt ever send thy life along with mine and bless Their garner'd Autumn also, reap with me, On earth a fruitless fallow, when he Earth-mother, in the harvest hymns of miss'd Earth The wonted steam of sacrifice, the praise The worship which is Love, and see no And prayer of men, decreed that thou should'st dwell For nine white moons of each whole year with me, more The Stone, the Wheel, the dimlyglimmering lawns Of that Elysium, all the hateful fires Three dark ones in the shadow with thy Of torment, and the shadowy warrior glide King. Along the silent field of Asphodel. |