POETRY.
AVERNUS.
[Dedicated to Mrs. Cuthbert Morrice.]
" Qualm multa in silvis, autumn ft-lore prime
Lapsa cadunt .En., Bk. vi., 1. 309.
As the wild wind whistles through woodland spaces, Whirling the leaves into aimless races, To cast them forth into desolate places,
As the red sparks spin from the breath of the blower, Flying and flickering higher or lower, Or the thin spray flits from the oar of the rower, So do we, torn from the world of our knowing, Dazed and forlorn with the wrench of our going, Eddy and whirl like water flowing.
Flitting and passing, but ever returning Back to the hearths where our home-fires were burning, Read we the lesson that's writ for our learning.
Now that the night and the silence enfold ns, Now that the bonds of eternity hold us, All that we did ere the darkness enrolled us, All that we did when the red blood was running, When our hands held their grip and our brains kept there cunning, When evil or good were for taking or shunning, We must watch blossoming hour by hour, From the seed to the bud, from the bud to the flower—• Wisdom is ours now, but nevermore power !
Dim, ineffectual, vague, unavailing, Emptily grasping and voicelessly wailing, Bound, in a rudderless ship we are sailing, Watching the souls that we loved—and around them The chains in whose fetters our own hands have bound them, The dearly beloved ! who were free when we found them I Nothing is here that the priests would have told us, No worm to gnaw us, no flame to enfold us, But the comfortless Wisdom of Death to bold us: To bold us, silent and ref t. of all power, Waiting in idleness hour by hour, Till the seeds we planted have come to flower.
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