Autumn and Winter
Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moonBetween two dates of death, while men were fainYet of the living light that all too soonThree months bade wane.
Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain,Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tuneThat death smote silent when he smote again.
First went my friend, in life's mid light of noon,Who loved the lord of music: then the strainWhence earth was kindled like as heaven in JuneThree months bade wane.
A herald soul before its master's flyingTouched by some few moons first the darkling goalWhere shades rose up to greet the shade, espyingA herald soul;
Shades of dead lords of music, who controlMen living by the might of men undying,With strength of strains that make delight of dole.
The deep dense dust on death's dim threshold lyingTrembled with sense of kindling sound that stoleThrough darkness, and the night gave ear, descryingA herald soul.
One went before, one after, but so fastThey seem gone hence together, from the shoreWhence we now gaze: yet ere the mightier passedOne went before;
One whose whole heart of love, being set of yoreOn that high joy which music lends us, castLight round him forth of music's radiant store.
Then went, while earth on winter glared aghast,The mortal god he worshipped, through the doorWherethrough so late, his lover to the last,One went before.
A star had set an hour before the sunSank from the skies wherethrough his heart's pulse yetThrills audibly: but few took heed, or none,A star had set.
All heaven rings back, sonorous with regret,The deep dirge of the sunset: how should oneSoft star be missed in all the concourse met?
But, O sweet single heart whose work is done,Whose songs are silent, how should I forgetThat ere the sunset's fiery goal was wonA star had set?
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