Classic Poem

" Do you think of me as I think of you,
My friends, my friends?" She said it from the sea,
The English minstrel in her minstrelsy,
While under brighter skies than erst she knew
Her heart grew dark, and groped as the blind,
To touch, across the waves, friends left behind —
" Do you think of me as I think of you?"

It seemed not much to ask — " as I of you?"
We all do ask the same — no eyelids cover
Within the meekest eyes that question over;
And little in this world the loving do
But sit (among the rocks?) and listen for
The echo of their own love evermore;
Do you think of me as I think of you?

Love-learned, she had sung of only love,
And as a child asleep (with weary head
Dropped on the fairy book he lately read),
Whatever household noises round him move,
Hears in his dream some elfin turbulence —
Even so, suggestive to her inward sense,
All sounds of life assumed one tune of love.

And when the glory of her dream withdrew,
When knightly gestes and courtly pageantries
Were broken in her visionary eyes
By tears, the solemn seas attested true —
Forgetting that sweet lute beside her hand,
She asked not, " Do you praise me, oh my land?"
But " Think ye of me, friends, as I of you?"

True heart to love, that poured many a year
Love's oracles for England, smooth and well —
Would God thou hadst an inward oracle
In that lone moment, to confirm thee dear!
For when thy questioned friends in agony
Made passionate response, " We think of thee",
Thy place was in the dust — too deep to hear!

Could she not wait to catch the answering breath?
Was she content with that drear ocean's sound,
Dashing his mocking infinite around
The craver of a little love, beneath
Those stars, content — where last her song had gone?
They , mute and cold in radiant life, as soon
Their singer was to be, in darksome death!

Bring your vain answers, cry, " We think of thee!"
How think ye of her? In the long ago
Delights, or crowned by new bays? Not so;
None smile, and none are crowned where lyeth she,
With all her visions unfulfilled — save one,
Her childhood's, of the palm-trees in the sun:
And lo, their shadow on her sepulchre!

Do you think of me as I think of you?
Oh friends, oh kindred, oh dear brotherhood
Of the whole world, what are we that we should
For covenants of long affection sue?
Why press so near each other, when the touch
Is barred by graves? Not much, and yet too much,
This " Think upon me as I think of you."

But while on mortal lips I shape anew
A sigh to mortal issues, verily
Above th' unshaken stars that see us die,
A vocal pathos rolls — and He who drew
All life from dust, and for all tasted death,
By death, and life, and love appealing, saith,
" Do you think of me as I think of you?"