THE IMMORTAL
King and priest and poet metIn a garden, arbor set,On a green hill by the seaWhere the waves lapped tenderly,Crooning to the restless sandsLullabies of distant lands.From the stately palace nearRippling music smote the ear,Mingled with the solemn bellOf the monks that matins tell’Neath the censer swinging slowIn the ancient church below.Dawn, with rosy fingertipsReached to Day, her lingering lipsPressed upon the dead Night’s brow;As we mortals, too, somehow,Turn us in the past to gropeEre we grasp the hand of Hope.Spake the king, as wistfullyHe looked out across the seaSparkling in the growing light:“Ah! the morning-promise bright!Bright as life, whose morning glowShadows but to dusk we know!Is it then a little striving,Ending at the last in nothing?Lieth there a fairer dayPast Death’s night, O poet, say?Priest, what sayeth your heart’s need,Standing clear of myth and creed?Said the priest: “Man is the flowerOf creation’s natal hour;He earth’s lord—and yet earth’s sorrowPresseth him, till he must borrowJoy from some half-guessed tomorrow—If his making be not jest;Or a mockery, at best.You who rule and I who pray,Shut from common strife away,Still find in our life’s brief cupTears and wormwood welling up;Vain would our existence beWithout immortality.”Lightly then the poet laughedAs the ruddy wine he quaffed:“What is immortalityTo the butterfly or bee?Yet life’s sweetest sweets are theirs,Summer suns and summer airs;Skyward still the brown larks climbAnd the ring doves in the limeWake the roses with their cooing,Silence into sweetness wooing;And the grass is glad in growingFor the white flocks hillward going.“E’en with gifts of sorrow’s givingThere is joy enough in living;Heart-kept joys in every dayNo ill chance can take away.Truth and beauty are immortal,And if we tomorrow’s portalShould not pass, yet men may say:“He lived kindly yesterday;Sought no evil, thought no ill;So we keep his memory still,As a lamp our feet to guideTill the ebbing of the tideCalls us seaward in the dark.”Look you, brothers, if a sparkOf eternal fire be caughtIn these bodies weakly wrought,Let it flame to noble deedsFor our present, human needs—So from life itself may weBuild our immortality.”