Classic Poem

Still were the azure fields, thick strewn
With stars, and trod by luminous feet;
In the low west the wan white Moon
Walked in her winding-sheet —
Holding her taper up, to see
Thy cold fair face, Mnemosyne.

And on that face her lustre fell,
Deepening the marble pallor there,
While by the stream, and down the dell,
Thy slow still feet did fare;
Thy maiden thoughts were far from me,
Thy lips were dumb, Mnemosyne.

I knew thee by a simpler name,
Meet for a maid of English birth,
And though thy beauty put to shame
All beauty born of earth,
Not till that night could my soul see
Thy soul's dark depths, Mnemosyne!

At last thy voice thrilled soft and low —
" Oh, blessed be the silent night!
It brings strange life of long ago
Back to the soul's sad sight —
It trances sense, and thought is free
To tremble through eternity.

" Oh, thinkest thou this life we live,
In this strange haunted planet nurst,
So mystical, so fugitive,
Could be the last? or first?
Nay, I remember! " — Pale stood she,
Fronting the west, Mnemosyne.

The moonlight on her cheek of snow,
The star-dew on her raven hair,
Her eyes in one divine dark glow
On heaven, she waited there —
" Nay, I remember! " murmured she,
The earthly maid, Mnemosyne.

And as she spake, it seemed I saw
Before me, in the mystic light,
That old Greek woman's-shape of awe,
Large, lustrous-eyed, and white —
The twilight goddess, fair to see,
With heavenly eyes — Mnemosyne!

The haunter of green moonlit tombs,
The reader, of old midnight lore,
The glorious walker through God's glooms,
Back-looking evermore.
I shook, and almost bent the knee,
Naming the name, " Mnemosyne!" ...

" I can remember! — all the day
Memory is dark, the past is dead,
But when the sunshine fades away,
And in the void o'erhead
Heaven's eyes flash open, I can see
That lost life!" said Mnemosyne.

" Before this mortal sphere I trod,
I breathed some strange and heavenly air;
Ay, wandered 'mid the glooms of God,
A living soul, up there!
The old lost life comes back to me
With starry gleams of memory!

" I can remember! " — In a trance,
O love, thou didst upgazing stand,
Nor turned from heaven thy lustrous glance,
While soft I kissed thy hand,
Whispering that mystic name to thee,
" Mnemosyne! Mnemosyne!"

And all the luminous eyes above
Concentred one still gaze on thine,
When warm wild words of earthly love
Poured in thine ears divine,
Till, with thy soft lips kissing me,
Thy soul saw mine, Mnemosyne!

A sense of that forgotten life
Blew on our cheeks like living breath;
Lifted beyond the world's dark strife,
Above the gates of Death,
Hand linked in hand, again lived we
That starlight life of ecstasy!

Go by, bright days of golden blooms!
She shrinks and darkens in your gleam;
Come, starry nights and mystic glooms,
And deepen that sweet dream!
Let her remember; let her be
Priestess of peace — Mnemosyne!

O child of heaven, the life we live,
In this strange haunted planet nurst,
So mystical, so fugitive,
Is not the last, or first;
That lost life was, new life shall be —
So keep thy name, — " Mnemosyne!"