Gilbert Parker

“ And the reapers have reaped, and the night is here.
Adieu! and the years are a broken song,
The right grows weak in the strife with wrong,
The lilies of love have a crimson stain,
And the old days never will come again.
Adieu! where the mountains afar are dim
'Neath the tremulous tread of the seraphim,
Shall not our querulous hearts prevail,
That have prayed for the peace of the Holy Grail?
Adieu! Some time shall the veil between
The things that are, and that might have been
Be folded back for our eyes to see,
And the meaning of all be clear to me. ”

“ The life that feeds upon itself is mad—
Is it not thus?
Have I not held but one poor broken reed
For both of us?
Keep but your place and simply meet
The needs of life;
Mine is the sorrow, mine the prayerless pain:
The world is rife
With spectres seen and spectres all unseen
By human eyes,
Who stand upon the threshold, at the gates,
Of Paradise. ”

“ Pointed the way for tired pilgrim eyes
To their far goal.
So let it be with us: perchance will come
In after days,
The benison of happiness for us
Always, always.
THE LAST DREAM One more dream in the slow night watches,
One more sleep when the world is dumb,
And his soul leans out to the sweet wild snatches
Of song that up from dreamland come.
Pale, pale face with a golden setting,
Deep, deep glow of stedfast eyes;
Form of one there is no forgetting,
Wandering out of Paradise. ”

“ Are ye to the light in the eyes of my love—
In the eyes, in the soul, of my love.
Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see
My love in thy garden, there waiting for me!
Beloved, beloved, have pity and make
Not the sun shut its eyes, its hot envious eyes ”

“ IN WASTE PLACES The new life is fief to the old life,
And giveth back pangs at the last;
The new strife is like to the old strife
A token and tear of the Past.
We change, but the changes are only
New forms of the old forms again,
We die and some spaces are lonely,
But men live in lives of new men.
We hate, and old wrongs lift their faces,
To fill up the ranks of the new ”

“ Oh, deep are my true love's eyes!
There is an orchard beyond the sea,
Its flowers the brown bee sips;
But the stateliest flower is all for me—
Oh, sweet are my true love's lips!
There is an orchard beyond the sea,
Where the soft delights do roam ”

“ Mine eyes to the hunt, and my soul afar-
I was stone; but I waked with the heart of a man.
WHEN ONE FORGETS When one forgets, the old things are as dead things;
The grey leaves fall, and eyes that saw their May
Turn from them now, and voices that have said things
Wherein Life joyed, alas! are still to-day—
When one forgets. ”

“ Who shall know the hour?
(Sing, my lady, still!)
LOVE IN HER COLD GRAVE LIES Love in her cold grave lies,
But that is not my love:
My love hath constant eyes,
My love her life doth prove;
That love, the poorer, dies—
Ah, that is not my love! ”

“ You may look back with your eyes
Turned to the dead of the Past,
And find with a sad surprise,
That yours is the dead at the last.
Seeing afar in the sands,
Gardens grown green, at what cost!
You may reach upward your hands,
Praying for what you have lost. ”

“ Eyes of a prophet or sphinx may deceive us,
Bearing us ruth,
But when the forts and the barriers fall,
Shall we not find One, the true, the almighty,
Wisely to speak with the worst of us all,
O Aphrodite?
Waiting, I turn from the futile, the human,
Gone is the life of me, laughing with youth;
Steals to learn all in the face of a woman,
Mendicant Truth.
AN ANCIENT PLEDGE Fair be the garden where their loves may dwell,
Safe be the highway where their feet may go ”

“ The fall it will be his; and though I strive and strain,
One blow will close my eyes, and I shall never waken.
THE SEA-REAPERS When the Four Winds, the Wrestlers, strive with the Sun,
When the Sun is slain in the dark ”

“ The hand that kills,
Though you have wept to strike, and but have cried,
"The mad Fate wills!"
You could not, if you would, give what had been
Peace, not distress;
Some warping cords of destiny had held
You in duress.
Nay, not the Fates, look higher; is God blind?
Doth He not well?
Our eyes see but a little space behind,
If it befell ”