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I hear a voice, perchance I heard Long ago, but all too low, So that scarce a care it stirred If the voice was real or no: I heard it in my youth when first The waters of my life outburst: But now their stream ebbs faint, I hear That voice, still low but fatal-clear— As if all Poets, God ever meant Should save the world, and therefore lent Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused To do His work, or lightly used Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavour, So, mourn cast off by Him for ever,— As if these leaned in airy ring To take me; this the song they sing. "Lost, lost! yet come, With our wan troop make thy home. Come, come! for we Will not breathe, so much as breathe Reproach to thee! Knowing what thou sink'st beneath. So sank we in those old years, We who bid thee, come! thou last Who, living yet, hast life o'erpast, And altogether we, thy peers, Will pardon ask for thee, the last Whose trial is done, whose lot is cast With those who watch but work no more, Who gaze on life but live no more. Yet we trusted thou shouldst speak The message which our lips, too weak, Refused to utter,—shouldst redeem Our fault: such trust, and all a dream! Yet we chose thee a birthplace Where the richness ran to flowers; Couldst not sing one song for grace? Not make one blossom man's and ours? Must one more recreant to his race Die with unexerted powers, And join us, leaving as he found The world, he was to loosen, bound? Anguish! ever and for ever; Still beginning, ending never! Yet, lost and last one, come! How couldst understand, alas, What our pale ghosts strove to say, As their shades did glance and pass Before thee, night and day? Thou wast blind as we were dumb: Once more, therefore, come, O come! How shall we clothe, how arm the spirit Who next shall thy post of life inherit— How guard him from thy speedy ruin? Tell us of thy sad undoing Here, where we sit, ever pursuing Our weary task, ever renewing Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave Our powers, and man they could not save!" |