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

XIII
TO THE MEMORY OF W. H. P.

LIFE may not perish though the winds of death Whine shrilly through the world, where we alone Crouch in the trodden dust, and feel the moan Of ancient sorrow burthening our breath. The blade endureth, though it break the sheath; Life springs and ceases in oblivion, Gathered and scattered by the master sun Like rain upon the waters calm beneath. We wait like corpses in a charnel-house, And singly, as the shrouded years return, They loose the cere-cloth on our furrowed brows;And one departs in splendour through the tomb, We hear the voice of Cherubim, and turn Weeping like children in the intenser gloom.