MARGARET L. WOODS

To the forgotten dead, Come, let us drink in silence ere we part. To every fervent yet resolvèd heart That brought its tameless passion and its tears, Renunciation and laborious years, To lay the deep foundations of our race, To rear its mighty ramparts overhead And light its pinnacles with golden grace. To the unhonoured dead. To the forgotten dead, What dauntless hands were stretched to grasp the rein Of Fate and hurl into the void again Her thunder-hoofèd horses, rushing blind Earthward along the courses of the wind. Among the stars along the wind in vain Their souls were scattered and their blood was shed, And nothing, nothing of them doth remain. To the thrice-perished dead.

Peace, Shepherd, peace! What boots it singing on? Since long ago grace-giving Phoebus died, And all the train that loved the stream-bright side Of the poetic mount with him are gone Beyond the shores of Styx and Acheron, In unexplorèd realms of night to hide. The clouds that show their shadows far and wide Are all of Heaven that visits Helicon. Yet here, where never muse or god did haunt, Still may some nameless power of Nature stray, Pleased with the reedy stream’s continual chant And purple pomp of these broad fields in May. The shepherds meet him where he herds the kine, And careless pass him by whose is the gift divine.

Far from the earth the deep-descended day Lies dim in hidden sanctuaries of sleep. The wingèd winds couched on the threshold keep Uneasy watch, and still expectant stay The voice that bids their rushing host delay No more to rise, and with tempestuous power Rend the wide veil of heaven. Long watching they Sigh in the silence of the midnight hour. Hark! where the forests slow in slumber sway Below the blue wild ridges, steep on steep, Thronging the sky—how shuddering as they leap The impetuous waters go their fated way, And mourn in mountain chasms, and as they stray By many a magic town and marble tower, As those that still unreconciled obey, Sigh in the silence of the midnight hour. Listen—the quiet darkness doth array The toiling earth, and there is time to weep— A deeper sound is mingled with the sweep Of streams and winds that whisper far away. Oh listen! where the populous cities lay Low in the lap of sleep their ancient dower, The changeless spirit of our changeful clay Sighs in the silence of the midnight hour. Sigh, watcher for a dawn remote and grey, Mourn, journeyer to an undesirèd deep, Eternal sower, thou that shalt not reap, Immortal, whom the plagues of God devour. Mourn—’tis the hour when thou wert wont to pray. Sigh in the silence of the midnight hour.