Vita Nuova
Alas, a veiled and silent Comer
Has dimmed the stars and hid the sun!
Gone is the glory of the summer,
And life is done.
Oh, life is done, for hope is banished,
What joy can be for you in store,
When the one face you loved has vanished
For evermore?
Nay, lonely mother, love is stronger
Than any tyranny of death;
Does faithful love survive no longer
Than fickle breath? —
No longer than the blood goes beating
Along the tideways of the brain?
Is love so transient and fleeting?
Is life so vain?
O mother, once your son and lover,
By face, — by eyes and lips you knew:
From eyes and lips you could discover
His love for you.
And now, altho' the eyes are darkened
By heavy eyelids closed and chill,
Altho' the lips to which you hearkened
Are grey and still,
Meseems the lips were but a portal,
The eyes were but a sunlit scroll,
To show you the divine, immortal,
Implicit soul.
And love that was to you attested
By radiant smile and ready praise,
May still be subtly manifested
In other ways.
Oh, surely love is higher, deeper,
Than human smile and human speech.
So high, so deep, the angel-reaper
Cannot reach.
Oh, love is more than carnate being,
Altho' it take such garb and guise;
Yea, more than hearing, and than seeing,
With ears and eyes.
Cannot you hear the spirit-voices
Filling the silences around?
And how his winged soul rejoices
To be bound?
To have no body intervening
Between his deepest thoughts and you,
To have no tabernacle screening
Your love from view?
The bond between you is not riven,
But forged into a finer chain;
Love that the God of Love has given
Is not in vain.
And some day Death will make completer
The bond that he appeared to break;
Some day, of love, diviner, sweeter,
You will partake.
Men who in arid deserts perish,
See in their dreams a crystal spring,
And so the forlorn wish we cherish,
Death dreams will bring.
Even Sleep, who is Death's gentle brother,
Makes mock of bounds of Time and Space;
And in the dreams of sleep, sad mother,
You see his face.
And all the barriers of the real,
In Space and Time will melt away
In the death-dream of the ideal,
Some happy day.
And in the wonderful awaking
From Life's elusive phantom show,
The love for which your heart is aching,
Your heart will know.
Meantime, your souls are ever meeting,
And though you cannot hear and see,
His heart by yours is beating, beating
Continually.
And God, meseems, would subtly teach you,
By this far exile from your son,
That love from unseen hearts can reach you,
That love is one .
Your son's dear love was part and token
Of love that had beside you been
All through your life, with words unspoken,
With face unseen.
And yearning for your son and lover,
Hid in the silent realms of Space;
Your spirit surely will discover
His Father's Face.
Has dimmed the stars and hid the sun!
Gone is the glory of the summer,
And life is done.
Oh, life is done, for hope is banished,
What joy can be for you in store,
When the one face you loved has vanished
For evermore?
Nay, lonely mother, love is stronger
Than any tyranny of death;
Does faithful love survive no longer
Than fickle breath? —
No longer than the blood goes beating
Along the tideways of the brain?
Is love so transient and fleeting?
Is life so vain?
O mother, once your son and lover,
By face, — by eyes and lips you knew:
From eyes and lips you could discover
His love for you.
And now, altho' the eyes are darkened
By heavy eyelids closed and chill,
Altho' the lips to which you hearkened
Are grey and still,
Meseems the lips were but a portal,
The eyes were but a sunlit scroll,
To show you the divine, immortal,
Implicit soul.
And love that was to you attested
By radiant smile and ready praise,
May still be subtly manifested
In other ways.
Oh, surely love is higher, deeper,
Than human smile and human speech.
So high, so deep, the angel-reaper
Cannot reach.
Oh, love is more than carnate being,
Altho' it take such garb and guise;
Yea, more than hearing, and than seeing,
With ears and eyes.
Cannot you hear the spirit-voices
Filling the silences around?
And how his winged soul rejoices
To be bound?
To have no body intervening
Between his deepest thoughts and you,
To have no tabernacle screening
Your love from view?
The bond between you is not riven,
But forged into a finer chain;
Love that the God of Love has given
Is not in vain.
And some day Death will make completer
The bond that he appeared to break;
Some day, of love, diviner, sweeter,
You will partake.
Men who in arid deserts perish,
See in their dreams a crystal spring,
And so the forlorn wish we cherish,
Death dreams will bring.
Even Sleep, who is Death's gentle brother,
Makes mock of bounds of Time and Space;
And in the dreams of sleep, sad mother,
You see his face.
And all the barriers of the real,
In Space and Time will melt away
In the death-dream of the ideal,
Some happy day.
And in the wonderful awaking
From Life's elusive phantom show,
The love for which your heart is aching,
Your heart will know.
Meantime, your souls are ever meeting,
And though you cannot hear and see,
His heart by yours is beating, beating
Continually.
And God, meseems, would subtly teach you,
By this far exile from your son,
That love from unseen hearts can reach you,
That love is one .
Your son's dear love was part and token
Of love that had beside you been
All through your life, with words unspoken,
With face unseen.
And yearning for your son and lover,
Hid in the silent realms of Space;
Your spirit surely will discover
His Father's Face.
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