I think sometimes I have already passed Into the kingdom of untroubled death, And wandering lonely amongst them I knew In Hellas or that land beyond the seas, Behold each shadow as it passes by Shrink half involuntarily, and turn, And veil its face and vanish in the gloom. Whilst out of that dim distance whence my steps Are moving and to which they shall return After an interval of endless years, There comes a voice that calls me from afar: "Art thou not Helen, dowered of the gods With all that man can covet? Wert thou not Created the most beautiful of earth, And is not beauty wisdom, wisdom power? What hast thou done with their almighty gift?" And then, ere I would answer, silence falls Around me, and the dark divides, and I See the blue twilight on the Spartan hills.
Thou only from this sorrow wert relief, Inviolate death, grave deity of rest, Wherein all things past somehow seem the best That ever could have come to be. Proud grief Her lustrous torch hath lighted in this brief Dim time before the dark, when the wide west Fades where illimitable skies suggest Days vanished in the beauty of belief.
As one unto a battle come, that stands Aloof awhile, beholding friend and foe Clashing in conflict, till his soul commands He, too, prest on whither the bugles blow, Lifting his eyes sees over wasted lands Life's dust and shadow drifting to and fro.
At morn we passed a hall where song And dance had been and wine flowed free, And where, 'mid wrecks of revelry, Had lain the feasters all night long.
They saw us through the mist of dawn, And, turning, called us to their feast-- The sound of lutes and cymbals ceased-- But one He fixed His gaze upon.
In whose wide eyes there seemed to be-- Behind the laughing, wine-flushed face And tilted ivy-crown's gay grace-- Faint glimpses of Eternity.
Then sad, the Master bowed His head, And, through the rosy twilight, dim, Walked up and softly spake to him: "Art thou not he that late was dead?"
The drinker raised his cup on high, And murmured: "Priest of Nazareth, I am he thou didst raise from death-- Lo, thus I wait again to die!"
This was the cross of God on which men's eyes Dwelt with the love of dead divinity, As they who by the desolate orient sea In battle made their sainted sacrifice, Dreaming their boundless striving should devise A symbol whereby men might know that he Who wins his way on earth to victory, Thus in his consummated sorrow dies.