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RENANUS loquitur:

Ah! leave me yet a little while, to watch

The golden glory of the dying day,

Till all the purple mountains gleam and catch

The last faint light that slowly steals away.

Too soon the night is on us; aye, too soon

We know the cloud is born of blinding mist:

The throne, whereon the gods sate crowned at noon

With ruby rays and liquid amethyst,

Is but a vapour, dim and grey, a streak

Of hollow rain that freezes in its fall,

A dull, cold shape that settles on the peak,

Icy and stifling as a dead man’s pall.

The world’s old faith is fairest in its death,

For death is fairer oftentimes than life;

No vulgar passion quivers in the breath:

The dead forget their weariness and strife.

Say not that death is even as decay,

A hideous charnel choked with rotting dust;

The cold white lips are beautiful as spray

Cast on an iceberg by the northern gust.

The memories of the past are diadem’d

About the brow and folded on the eyes;

The weary lids beneath are bent and gemm’d

With charmèd dreams and mystic reveries.