And the light we thought had fled From the sky-line glows there now; Bends the same blue overhead; And the waves we used to plow Part in beryl at the bow.
Hours like this we two have known In the old days, when we sailed Seaward ere the night had flown, Or the morning star had paled Like the shy eyes love has veiled.
Round our bow the ripples purled, As the swift tide outward streamed Through a hushed and ghostly world, Where our harbor reaches seemed Like a river that we dreamed.
Then we saw the black hills sway In the waters' crinkled glass, And the village wan and gray, And the startled cattle pass Through the tangled meadow-grass.
Through the glooming we have run Straight into the gates of day, Seen the crimson-edgèd sun Burn the sea's gray bound away-- Leap to universal sway.
Little cared we where we drove So the wind was strong and keen. Oh, what sun-crowned waves we clove! What cool shadows lurked between Those long combers pale and green!
Graybeard pleasures are but toys; Sorrow shatters them at last: For this brief hour we are boys; Trim the sheet and face the blast; Sail into the happy past!
Let me come in where you sit weeping,--aye, Let me, who have not any child to die, Weep with you for the little one whose love I have known nothing of.
The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed Their pressure round your neck; the hands you used To kiss.--Such arms--such hands I never knew. May I not weep with you?
Fain would I be of service--say some thing, Between the tears, that would be comforting,-- But ah! so sadder than yourselves am I, Who have no child to die.
Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility.
We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain. We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity.
These are the days when birds come back, A very few, a bird or two, To take a backward look.