The Dead Moment
THE world is changed between us, never more
Shall the dawn rise and seek another mate
Over the hill-tops; never can the shore
Spread out her ragged tresses to the roar
Of the sea passionate,
Moon-chained, and for a season love-forbid;
Never shall shift the sullen thunder's lid
At lightning-lash, and never shall the night
Throw the wild stars about,
Nor the day flicker out
Against the evening's breath; but this shall creep--
This moment on us, to make different
The face of every day's intent,
And change the brow of sleep.
What can we name it? Oh, the whitest word
Would leave a stain upon that moment's mouth!
The sweetest piping heard
By wearying birds a-South
Would shake its silence, let no word be said;
What need of name or music hath the dead?
Too far for call, too faint for song it is,
This ghost of ours, that you have buried deep;
Less earth than any violet nourishes
Its fragile stem would keep;
And we could lose it in the frailest shell,
Or lily's wannest bell;
In any rose's urn that dust might dwell.
Oh! to forsake it thus,
Our only one, our starveling piteous!
Even as men who garner and lock up
Gold chasuble and cup,--
Their alabaster and their tourmaline,--
Their sandal-wood and wine,
Will give their dearest to the earth to keep,
Housed among strangers, and will let the clay
Or oozing river-bed
Rot all their wealth away,
While they go home to sleep!
Will let the wild roots of the bramble clutch,
And see the careless sod
Trample it down, and bruise with common touch
All that they knew of glory and of God!
(Who would not house a thief so house their dead!)
In the blind dark with wolf-winds overhead.
When night sucks honey from the hive of day
They lie, while April, with her merry clout,
Flings the white dust about;
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poem by Muriel Stuart
Added by Poetry Lover
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