THE OLD POET FORETELLS THE MANNER OF HIS DEATH

I shall not hear men’s voices soon For the silvery music of the Shee; Between me and the world a veil Will fall of woven imagerie, With cooling green of boyhood’s leaves, With whorls of water light that weaves. I shall not bring to mind the tasks I laboured at so long ago, But I shall marvel much that man On dewy earth should travail so To bring small matters to an end Where all things weave, and change, and blend.

I’ll mind me how like morning light Love was before it turned unkind, But when the change, or what the harm, I shall not search the past to find While burning questions, cried to God, Flow off, like wind waves over sod. The evils that I wrought myself Like hoarse war bugles, sea-ward driven Will pass; the evils men did me Be half forgotten, all forgiven. I’ll think the worst to God must seem Like small, sick movements in a dream. This body that like marble was For heaviness and weight of care Will burn with a celestial fire, And fade, and free me to the air Where I shall never know again Old troubles born of nerve and vein.

Meanwhile a spacious loveliness, A quiet, brooding sense of light, Majestic freedom, and fine strength Will near me. Led by visions bright Of natural beauty I’ll be drawn Toward greater loves than I have known. I’ll seem to sleep. Disturb me not, For while Incarnate Light draws near, A last gift of the race to clay, Sweet music of the Shee I’ll hear, Lulled and withdrawn by soft preludes Through deep, expectant solitudes.