Classic Poem

Alone! alone!
Forth out of the darkness,
Back into the darkness,
We come and we go alone.

O birth! O death!
Lone cry from the midnight,
Moan lost in the midnight,
A catch and a lapse of breath!

O youth! fleet dream!
We sleep out of heaven,
We dream down from heaven,
Then wake from the fleeting dream.

No more! no more!
Youth's gladness of living,
Love's madness of living,
Can come back to me no more.

Those glad, mad years!
How, dancing and singing,
How danced and went winging
Those passionate choral years!

To be! to live!
What being, what living,
What largess of living
The blood of the boy can give!

O earth! O heaven!
Earth glad with all beauty,
And no hint of duty
From all the glad blue of heaven!

Sun, moon, and stars!
Lakes, woods with birds flying
Through them, and the crying
Of insects beneath the stars!

Then life in love!
Life's torrent-stream steadied,
Stopt, flowed back, and eddied
About in the pool of love.

From boy to man!
Bridge built of a rainbow —
Love's luminous rainbow,
Which fadeth from boy to man.

Love's fading bow!
Still following hither,
I follow on whither
It lures me and I must go.

Yes, follow on!
Love's rainbow-ideal,
So nigh and so real,
Still flies, but I follow on.

For love is all!
Hope, pleasure, ambition,
Fame's fullest fruition,
Are nothing; for love is all.

But age grows lone!
For age is unlovely —
Age wins not the lovely; —
We go as we came, alone.

Alone! alone!
Forth out of the darkness,
Back into the darkness,
We come and we go alone.