And now no sacred staff shall break in blossom, No choral salutation lure to light A spirit sick with perfume and sweet night And love's tired eyes and hands and barren bosom. There is no help for these things; none to mend And none to mar; not all our songs, O friend, Will make death clear or make life durable. Howbeit with rose and ivy and wild vine And with wild notes about this dust of thine At least I fill the place where white dreams dwell And wreathe an unseen shrine. XVII Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive. Out of the mystic and the mournful garden Where all day through thine hands in barren braid Wove the sick flowers of secrecy and shade, Green buds of sorrow and sin, and remnants grey, Sweet-smelling, pale with poison, sanguine-hearted, Passions that sprang from sleep and thoughts that started, Shall death not bring us all as thee one day Among the days departed? XVIII For thee, O now a silent soul, my brother, Take at my hands this garland, and farewell. Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell, And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother, With sadder than the Niobean womb, And in the hollow of her breasts a tomb. Content thee, howsoe'er, whose days are done; There lies not any troublous thing before, Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more, For whom all winds are quiet as the sun, All waters as the shore. MEMORIAL VERSES ON THE DEATH OF THEOPHILE GAUTIER Death, what hast thou to do with me? So saith Love, with eyes set against the face of Death; What have I done, O thou strong Death, to thee, That mine own lips should wither from thy breath? Though thou be blind as fire or as the sea, Why should thy waves and storms make war on me? Is it for hate thou hast to find me fair, Or for desire to kiss, if it might be, My very mouth of song, and kill me there? So with keen rains vexing his crownless hair. With bright feet bruised from no delightful way, Through darkness and the disenchanted air, Lost Love went weeping half a winter's day. And the armed wind that smote him seemed to say, How shall the dew live when the dawn is fled, Or wherefore should the Mayflower outlast May? Then Death took Love by the right hand and said, Smiling: Come now and look upon thy dead. But Love cast down the glories of his eyes, And bowed down like a flower his flowerless head. And Death spake, saying: What ails thee in such wise, Being god, to shut thy sight up from the skies? If thou canst see not, hast thou ears to hear? Or is thy soul too as a leaf that dies? Even as he spake with fleshless lips of fear, But soft as sleep sings in a tired man's ear, Behold, the winter was not, and its might Fell, and fruits broke forth of the barren year.