The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave; Derives it not from what we have The likest God within the soul? Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear; I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world’s altar-stairs That slope thro’ darkness up to God; I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope. LV. ‘So careful of the type?’ but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries ‘a thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go. Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death: The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.’ And he, shall he, Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation’s final law-- Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek’d against his creed-- Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, Or seal’d within the iron hills? No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music match’d with him. O life as futile, then, as frail! O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil. LVI. Peace, come away: the song of woe Is after all an earthly song: Peace, come away; we do him wrong To sing so wildly; let us go. Come, let us go, your cheeks are pale, But half my life I leave behind; Methinks my friend is richly shrined, But I shall pass; my work will fail. Yet in these ears till hearing dies, One set slow bell will seem to toll The passing of the sweetest soul That ever looked with human eyes. I hear it now, and o’er and o’er, Eternal greetings to the dead; And ‘Ave, Ave, Ave,’ said, ‘Adieu, adieu’ for evermore! LVII. In those sad words I took farewell: Like echoes in sepulchral halls, As drop by drop the water falls In vaults and catacombs, they fell;