Page:Poems (IA poemsthomrich).pdf/50
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38
And levy impost on the golden sun,
Take the blind years as they might run,
And no fate seek or shun.
Take the blind years as they might run,
And no fate seek or shun.
But now our yew is strook, is fallen—yea
Hacked like dull wood of every day
To this and that, men say.
Hacked like dull wood of every day
To this and that, men say.
Never!—To Hades' shadowy shipyards gone,
Dim barge of Dis, down Acheron
It drops, or Lethe wan.
Dim barge of Dis, down Acheron
It drops, or Lethe wan.
Stirred by its fall—poor destined bark of Dis!—
Along my soul a bruit there is
Of echoing images,
Along my soul a bruit there is
Of echoing images,
Reverberations of mortality:
Spelt backward from its death, to me
Its life reads saddenedly.
Spelt backward from its death, to me
Its life reads saddenedly.
Its breast was hollowed as the tooth of eld;
And boys, there creeping unbeheld,
A laughing moment dwelled.
And boys, there creeping unbeheld,
A laughing moment dwelled.
Yet they, within its very heart so crept,
Reached not the heart that courage kept
With winds and years beswept.
Reached not the heart that courage kept
With winds and years beswept.
And in its boughs did close and kindly nest
The birds, as they within its breast,
By all its leaves caressed.
The birds, as they within its breast,
By all its leaves caressed.