The fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof (This is the end of every song man sings!) The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain, Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain; And health and hope have gone the way of love Into the drear oblivion of lost things. Ghosts go along with us until the end; This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend. With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait For the dropt curtain and the closing gate: This is the end of all the songs man sings. A SONG All that a man may pray, Have I not prayed to thee? What were praise left to say, Has not been said by me _O, ma mie?_ Yet thine eyes and thine heart, Always were dumb to me: Only to be my part, Sorrow has come from thee, _O, ma mie?_ Where shall I seek and hide My grief away with me? Lest my bitter tears should chide, Bring brief dismay to thee, _O, ma mie?_ More than a man may pray, Have I not prayed to thee? What were praise left to say, Has not been said by me, _O, ma mie?_ BRETON AFTERNOON Here, where the breath of the scented-gorse floats through the sun-stained air, On a steep hill-side, on a grassy ledge, I have lain hours long and heard Only the faint breeze pass in a whisper like a prayer, And the river ripple by and the distant call of a bird. On the lone hill-side, in the gold sunshine, I will hush me and repose, And the world fades into a dream and a spell is cast on me; _And what was all the strife about, for the myrtle or the rose, And why have I wept for a white girl's paleness passing ivory!_ Out of the tumult of angry tongues, in a land alone, apart, In a perfumed dream-land set betwixt the bounds of life and death, Here will I lie while the clouds fly by and delve an hole where my heart May sleep deep down with the gorse above and red, red earth beneath. Sleep and be quiet for an afternoon, till the rose-white angelus Softly steals my way from the village under the hill: _Mother of God, O Misericord, look down in pity on us, The weak and blind who stand in our light and wreak ourselves such ill_. VENITE DESCENDAMUS Let be at last; give over words and sighing, Vainly were all things said: Better at last to find a place for lying, Only dead. Silence were best, with songs and sighing over; Now be the music mute; Now let the dead, red leaves of autumn cover A vain lute. Silence is best: for ever and for ever, We will go down and sleep, Somewhere beyond her ken, where she need never Come to weep. Let be at last: colder she grows and colder; Sleep and the night were best; Lying at last where we cannot behold her, We may rest. TRANSITION A little while to walk with thee, dear child; To lean on thee my weak and weary head; Then evening comes: the winter sky is wild, The leafless trees are black, the leaves long dead.