Song of the wave / George Cabot Lodge [electronic text]

THE END

Il sempre sospirar nulla rileva.

— IL PETRARCA.

I SAID, "Since Life is old with pain, Since words are cold and tears are dead, And nothing now is left unsaid, And all the strain of thought is vain;

"Since joy by joy the dreadful past Is paid in agony of soul, Since held in life's severe control, Our shaken hearts are mute at last

"Since echoless and unrevealed, Beyond, the sad impending days Shall take us both in several ways, Thro' worlds of windy rain concealed

"Since we have stood alone and proud And paid for every joy in full, And living touched the flames of Hell And given life the tears we owed:

"We who have felt the wild lament, The voids of darkness, cold and pain, That base the life we hold in vain, That vainly come is vainly spent,

"May watch alone the myriads pass Their low and level twilight way, Where never falls the splendid sway Of primal truth that is and was.

"The balance only lifts to fall, The hemlock almost seems divine To us, whose lips have touched the wine That makes God's lips grow musical.

"And they, who neither know nor feel, Are strange to us nor understand— I lay my lips upon thy hand And joy and pain grow tense as steel."