O when, with weary limbs, we lose
The light, with day-time's thousand hues,
And when, from shady shapes of night,
We shut in sleep our weary sight,
All heedless how the stars may light
The hoary fogs of airy night;
To light the road for later eyes
The lofty moon then climbs the skies,
And southern sides of boughs grow bright
Above the darksome shades of night,
Where cheeks in glimm'ring gloom may hide
Their glowing by a sweetheart's side;
As when in younger years we took
Home you up hill beyond the brook,
With lightsome limbs all skipping through

Stay, O sweet, and do not rise;
The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay, or else my joys will die
And perish in their infancy.

“I was born into this world with a chance to be happy, healthy and honest.
I opened my eyes into a world that needed me.
But—my mind is slow, my eyes weak, my nerves raw, my body twisted.

I meet life with doubts and fears (too weak to make a winning fight),
I—I who was born to work and laugh and play.
I am sixty-five per cent of the children of my country.
Dear God, I am the future of my race,
I am the cheated child.”

The more a Wit, or Wise Man, you'd appear,
The more you prove, you but a Babler are,
The more your own self, you will only hear;
Men show more Sense, the less their own they prize,
And more than others Thoughts, their own despise,
Who hearing others, seem, nay, prove more wise;
Less by their Speaking, than their Hearing so,
At once their Judgment, both improve, and show,
And but more Wise still, as more Silent grow;
Since till you speak, none can know what you are,
Speak less, that Thee, Men but the more may hear,

So many a dream and hope that went and came,
So many and sweet, that love thought like to be,
Of hours as bright and soft as those for me
That made our hearts for song's sweet love the same,
Lie now struck dead, that hope seems one with shame.
O Death, thy name is Love: we know it, and see
The witness: yet for very love's sake we
Can hardly bear to mix with thine his name

Philip, how hard it is to bid thee part
Thou knowest, if aught thou knowest where now thou art
Of us that loved and love thee. None may tell

As Greece of old acclaimed thee God and man,
So, Death, our tongue acclaims thee: yet wast thou
Hailed of old Rome as Romans hail thee now,
Goddess and woman. Since the sands first ran
That told when first man's life and death began,
The shadows round thy blind ambiguous brow
Have mocked the votive plea, the pleading vow
That sought thee sorrowing, fain to bless or ban.

But stronger than a father's love is thine,
And gentler than a mother's. Lord and God,
Thy staff is surer than the wizard rod
That Hermes bare as priest before thy shrine

Thou canst not give it. Grace enough is ours
To know that pain for him has fallen on rest.
The worst we know was his on earth: the best,
We fain would think,—a thought no fear deflowers—
Is his, released from bonds of rayless hours.
Ah, turn our hearts from longing; bid our quest
Cease, as content with failure. This thy guest.
Sleeps, vexed no more of time's imperious powers,
The spirit of hope, the spirit of change and loss,
The spirit of love bowed down beneath his cross,
Nor now needs comfort from the strength of song

Sister of sleep, healer of life, divine
As rest and strong as very love may be,
To set the soul that love could set not free,
To bid the skies that day could bid not shine,
To give the gift that life withheld was thine.
With all my heart I loved one borne from me:
And all my heart bows down and praises thee,
Death, that hast now made grief not his but mine.

O Changer of men's hearts, we would not bid thee
Turn back our hearts from sorrow: this alone.
We bid, we pray thee, from thy sovereign throne
And sanctuary sublime where heaven has hid thee,

Could love give strength to thank thee! Love can give
Strong sorrow heart to suffer: what we bear
We would not put away, albeit this were
A burden love might cast aside and live.
Love chooses rather pain than palliative,
Sharp thought than soft oblivion. May we dare
So trample down our passion and our prayer
That fain would cling round feet now fugitive
And stay them—so remember, so forget,
What joy we had who had his presence yet,
What griefs were his while joy in him was ours
And grief made weary music of his breath,

O Death, fair Death, sole comforter and sweet,
Nor Love nor Hope can give such gifts as thine:
Sleep hardly shows us round thy shadowy shrine
What roses hang, what music floats, what feet
Pass and what wings of angels. We repeat
Wild words or mild, disastrous or divine,
Blind prayer, blind imprecation, seeing no sign
Nor hearing aught of thee not faint and fleet
As words of men or snowflakes on the wind.
But if we chide thee, saying “Thou hast sinned, thou hast sinned,
Dark Death, to take so sweet a light away