Classic Poem

If I had died, and never seen the dawn
For which I hardly hoped, lighting this lawn
Of silvery grasses; if there had been no light,
And last night merged into perpetual night;
I doubt if I should ever have been content
To have closed my eyes without some testament
To the great benefits that marked my faring
Through the sweet world; for all my joy was sharing
And lonely pleasures were few. Unto which end
Three legacies I'll send,
Three legacies, already half possess'd:
One to a friend, of all good friends the best,
Better than which is nothing; yet another
Unto thy twin, dissimilar spirit, Brother;
The third to you,
Most beautiful, most true,
Most perfect one, to whom they all are due.
Quick, quick … while there is time. . . .
O best of friends, I leave you one sublime
Summer, one fadeless summer. 'Twas begun
Ere Cotswold hawthorn tarnished in the sun,
When hedges were fledged with green, and early swallows
Swift-darting, on curved wings, pillaged the fallows;
When all our vale was dappled blossom and light,
And oh, the scent of beanfields in the night!
You shall remember that rich dust at even
Which made old Evesham like a street in heaven,
Gold-paved, and washed within a wave of golden
Air all her dreamy towers and gables olden.
You shall remember
How arms sun-blistered, hot palms crack'd with rowing,
Clove the cool water of Avon, sweetly flowing;
And how our bodies, beautifully white,
Stretch'd to a long stroke lengthened in green light,
And we, emerging, laughed in childish wise,
And pressed the kissing water from our eyes.
Ah, was our laughter childish, or were we wise?
And then, crown of the day, a tired returning
When happy sunsets over Bredon burning,
With music and with moonlight, and good ale,
And no thought for the morrow. . . . Heavy phlox
Our garden pathways bordered, and evening stocks,
Those humble weeds, in sunlight withered and pale,
With a night scent to match the nightingale,
Gladdened with spicèd sweetness sweet night's shadows,
Meeting the breath of hay from mowing meadows:
As humble was our joy, and as intense
Our rapture. So, before I hurry hence,
Yours be the memory.
One night again,
When we were men, and had striven, and known pain,
By a dark canal debating, unresigned,
On the blind fate that shadows humankind,
On the blind sword that severs human love…
Then did the hidden belfry from above
On troubled minds in benediction shed
The patience of the great anonymous dead
Who reared those towers, those high cathedrals builded
In solemn stone, and with clear fancy gilded
A beauty beyond ours, trusting in God.
Then dared we follow the dark way they trod,
And bowing to the universal plan
Trust in the true and fiery spirit of Man.

And you, my Brother,
You know, as knows one other,
How my spirit revisiteth a room
In a high wing, beneath pine-trees, where gloom
Dwelleth, dispelled by resinous wood embers,
Where, in half-darkness…How the heart remembers…
We talked of beauty, and those fiery things
To which the divine desirous spirit clings,
In a wing'd rapture to that heaven flinging,
Where beauty is an easy thing, and singing
The natural speech of man. Like kissing swords
Our wits clashed there; the brittle beauty of words
Breaking, seemed to discover its secret heart
And all the rapt elusiveness of Art.
Now I have known sorrow, and now I sing
That a lovely word is not an idle thing;
For as with stars the cloth of night is spangled,
With star-like words, most lovelily entangled,
The woof of sombre thought is deckt. . . . Ah, bright
And cold they glitter in the spirit's night!
But neither distant nor dispassionate;
For beauty is an armour against fate. . . .
I tell you, who have stood in the dark alone.
Seeing the face that turneth all to stone,
Medusa, blind with hate,
While I was dying, Beauty sate with me
Nor tortured any longer; gracious was she;
To her soft words I listened, and was content
To die, nor sorry that my light was spent.
So, Brother, if I come not home,
Go to that little room
That my spirit revisiteth, and there,
Somewhere in the blue air, you shall discover
If that you be a lover
Nor haughtily minded, all that once half-shaped
Then fled us, and escaped:
All that I found that day,
Far, so far away.
And you, my lovely one,
What can I leave to you, who, you having left,
Am utterly bereft?
What silences, what hours
Is not already yours?
What silences what hours
Of peace passing all understanding; days
Made lyric by your beauty and its praise;
Years neither time can tarnish, nor death mar,
Wherein you shined as steadfast as a star
In my bleak night, heedless of the cloud-wrack
Scudding in torn fleeces black
Of my dark moods, as those who rule the far
Star-haunted pleasaunces of heaven are?
So think but lightly of that afternoon
With white clouds climbing a blue sky in June
When a boy worshipped under dreaming trees,
Who touched your hand, and sought your eyes.
…Ah, cease,
Not these, not these…
Nor yet those nights when icy Brathay thundered
Under his bridges, and ghostly mountains wondered
At the white blossoming of a Christmas rose
More stainless than their snows;
Nor even of those placid days together
Mellow as early autumn's amber weather
When beech is ankleted with fire, and old
Elms wear their livery of yellow gold,
When orchards all are laden with increase,
And the quiet earth hath fruited, and knows peace
Oh, think not overmuch on those sweet years
Lest their last fruit be tears,—
Your tears, beloved, that were my utmost pain,—
But rather, dream again
How that a lover, half poet and half child,
An eager spirit of fragile fancies wild
Compact, adored the beauty and truth in you:
To your own truth be true;
And when, not mournfully, you turn this page
Consider still your starry heritage,
Continue in your loveliness, a star
To gladden me from afar
Even where there is no light
In my last night.