The Closing Scene "Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he; "Have naught but the bearded grain? 3207 Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves; It was for the Lord of Paradise He bound them in his sheaves. "My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," Where He was once a child. "They shall all bloom in fields of light, And saints, upon their garments white, And the mother gave, in tears and pain, She knew she should find them all again Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath, The Reaper came that day; 'Twas an angel visited the green earth, And took the flowers away. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807–1882] THE CLOSING SCENE WITHIN his sober realm of leafless trees, The gray barns looking from their hazy hills All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued, The hills seemed farther and the streams sang low; As in a dream the distant woodman hewed His winter log with many a muffled blow. The embattled forests, erewhile armed in gold, On slumbrous wings the vulture held his flight; The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint. The sentinel-cock upon the hillside crew,- His alien horn, and then was heard no more. Where erst the jay, within the elm's tall crest, Where sang the noisy masons of the eaves, An early harvest and a plenteous year;— Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast, To warn the reaper of the rosy east,— All now was songless, empty, and forlorn. Alone from out the stubble piped the quail, And croaked the crow through all the dreamy gloom; Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale, Made echo to the distant cottage loom. The Closing Scene There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers; 3209 The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night; Amid all this, in this most cheerless air, And where the woodbine shed upon the porch Its crimson leaves, as if the Year stood there Firing the floor with his inverted torch;— Amid all this, the center of the scene, The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread, She had known Sorrow, he had walked with her, While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom, Re-gave the swords, but not the hand that drew Nor him who, to his sire and country true, Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on, Like the low murmur of a hive at noon; of the gone Long, but not loud, the memory At last the thread was snapped, her head was bowed; Life dropped the distaff through his hands serene;And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud, While Death and Winter closed the autumn scene. Thomas Buchanan Read [1822-1872] MORS ET VITA We know not yet what life shall be, Still, somewhere in sweet converse met, Those days of yore, those years when we We know not yet. Samuel Waddington [1844 "WHAT IS TO COME" WHAT is to come we know not. But we know We are the masters of the days that were: We have lived, we have loved, we have suffered . . . even so. ... Shall we not take the ebb who had the flow? Life was our friend. Now, if it be our foe- Dear, though it spoil and break us!-need we care What is to come? Let the great winds their worst and wildest blow, In the rich quiet of the after-glow What is to come. William Ernest Henley [1849-1903] "When the Most is Said" A ROUNDEL OF REST If rest is sweet at shut of day We work or work not through the heat: When the last dawns are fallen gray Arthur Symons [1865 3211 "WHEN THE MOST IS SAID" WHAT'S love, when the most is said? The flash of the lightning fleet, Then, darkness that shrouds the soul,-but the earth is firm to my feet; The rocks and the tides endure, the grasses and herbs return, The path to my foot is sure, and the sods to my bosom yearn. What's fame, when the truth is told? A shout to a distant hill, The crags may echo a while, but fainter, and fainter still; Yet forever the wind blows wide the sweetness of all the skies, The rain cries and the snow flies, and the storm in its bosom lies. What's life, what's life, little heart? A dream when the nights are long, Toil in the waking days,-tears, and a kiss, a song. |