O my king, O my son! Ah, woe's me for my kindness, For the day when thou drew'st me and I let thee be drawn Into toils I knew deadly, into death thou desiredst! And woe's me that I die not! for my body made hardy By the battles of old days to bear every anguish! --Speak a word and forgive me, for who knows how long yet Are the days of my life, and the hours of my loathing! He speaks not, he moves not; yet he draweth breath softly: I have seen men a-dying, and not thus did the end come. Surely God who made all forgets not love's rewarding, Forgets not the faithful, the guileless who fear not. Oh, might there be help yet, and some new life's beginning! --Lo, lighter the mist grows: there come sounds through its dulness, The lowing of kine, or the whoop of a shepherd, The bell-wether's tinkle, or clatter of horse-hoofs. A homestead is nigh us: I will fare down the highway And seek for some helping: folk said simple people Abode in this valley, and these may avail us-- If aught it avail us to live for a little. --Yea, give it us, God!--all the fame and the glory We fought for and gained once; the life of well-doing, Fair deed thrusting on deed, and no day forgotten; And due worship of folk that his great heart had holpen;-- All I prayed for him once now no longer I pray for. Let it all pass away as my warm breath now passeth In the chill of the morning mist wherewith thou hidest Fair vale and grey mountain of the land we are come to! Let it all pass away! but some peace and some pleasure I pray for him yet, and that I may behold it. A prayer little and lowly,--and we in the old time When the world lay before us, were we hard to the lowly? Thou know'st we were kind, howso hard to be beaten; Wilt thou help us this last time? or what hast thou hidden We know not, we name not, some crown for our striving? --O body and soul of my son, may God keep thee! For, as lone as thou liest in a land that we see not When the world loseth thee, what is left for its losing? [_Exit_ OLIVER. THE MUSIC _LOVE IS ENOUGH: cherish life that abideth, Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him; For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth, On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth? And what is the joy of man's life that ye blame him For his bliss grown a sword, and his rest grown a fire? Ye who tremble for death, or the death of desire, Pass about the cold winter-tide garden and ponder On the rose in his glory amidst of June's fire, On the languor of noontide that gathered the thunder, On the morn and its freshness, the eve and its wonder; Ye may wake it no more--shall Spring come to awaken?