They tell you that Death ’s at the turn of the road, That under the shade of a cypress you ’ll find him, And, struggling on wearily, lashed by the goad Of pain, you will enter the black mist behind him. I can walk with you up to the ridge of the hill, And we ’ll talk of the way we have come through the valley; Down below there a bird breaks into a trill, And a groaning slave bends to the oar of his galley. You are up on the heights now, you pity the slave— “Poor soul, how fate lashes him on at his rowing! Yet it ’s joyful to live, and it ’s hard to be brave When you watch the sun sink and the daylight is going.” We are almost there—our last walk on this height— I must bid you good-by at that cross on the mountain. See the sun glowing red, and the pulsating light Fill the valley, and rise like the flood in a fountain! And it shines in your face and illumines your soul; We are comrades as ever, right here at your going; You may rest if you will within sight of the goal, While I must return to my oar and the rowing. We must part now? Well, here is the hand of a friend; I will keep you in sight till the road makes its turning Just over the ridge within reach of the end Of your arduous toil,—the beginning of learning. You will call to me once from the mist, on the verge, “Au revoir!” and “Good night!” while the twilight is creeping Up luminous peaks, and the pale stars emerge? Yes, I hear your faint voice: “This is rest, and like sleeping!”
The Unillumined Verge
More from Poet
-
After Kipling HE sits in a sea-green grotto with a bucket of lurid paint, And draws the Thing as it isn’t for the God of things as they ain’t.
-
In this May-month, by grace of heaven, things shoot apace. The waiting multitude of fair boughs in the wood,— How few days have arrayed their beauty in green shade! What have I seen or heard? it was the yellow bird Sang in the tree: he flew a flame against the blue; Upward he flashed....
-
A Poppy grows upon the shore Bursts her twin cup in summer late: Her leaves are glaucous green and hoar, Her petals yellow, delicate. Oft to her cousins turns her thought, In wonder if they care that she Is fed with spray for dew, and caught By every gale that sweeps the sea. She has no...
-
To a Friend Dying THEY tell you that Death ’s at the turn of the road, That under the shade of a cypress you ’ll find him, And, struggling on wearily, lashed by the goad Of pain, you will enter the black mist behind him. I can walk with you up to the ridge of the hill, And we ’ll talk of...
-
So sweet love seemed that April morn, When first we kissed beside the thorn, So strangely sweet, it was not strange We thought that love could never change. But I can tell—let truth be told— That love will change in growing old; Though day by day is naught to see, So delicate his motions be. And...