The Earthly Paradise (December-February): L’Envoi
HERE are we for the last time face to face, Good reason why I love thee, e’en if thou I love thee; yet this last time must it be "For this he ever said, who sent me forth "I have beheld him tremble oft enough "Thou, keen-eyed, reading me, mayst read him through, "Death have we hated, knowing not what it meant; "O Master, if thine heart could love us yet, LONDON:
Thou and I, Book, before I bid thee speed
Upon thy perilous journey to that place
For which I have done on thee pilgrim's weed,
Striving to get thee all things for thy need—
—I love thee, whatso time or men may say
Of the poor singer of an empty day.
Be mocked or clean forgot as time wears on;
For ever as thy fashioning did grow,
Kind word and praise because of thee I won
From those without whom were my world all gone,
My hope fallen dead, my singing cast away,
And I set soothly in an empty day.
That thou must hold thy peace and I must speak,
Lest if thou babble I begin to see
Thy gear too thin, thy limbs and heart too weak,
To find the land thou goest forth to seek—
—Though what harm if thou die upon the way,
Thou idle singer of an empty day?
In raiment rent of stories oft besung!
But of thy gentleness draw thou anear,
And then the heart of one who held thee dear
Mayst thou behold! So near as that I lay
Unto the singer of an empty day.
To seek a place amid thy company;
That howsoever little was my worth,
Yet was he worth e’en just so much as I;
He said that rhyme hath little skill to lie;
Nor feigned to cast his worser part away
In idle singing for an empty day.
At things he could not choose but trust to me,
Although he knew the world was wise and rough:
And never did he fail to let me see
His love, his folly and faithlessness, maybe;
And still in turn I gave him voice to pray
Such prayers as cling about an empty day.
For surely little is there left behind;
And seeking still the pleasure of our eyes,
And what our ears with sweetest sounds may fill;
Not fearing Love, lest these things he should kill;
Howe’er his pain by pleasure doth he lay,
Making a strange tale of an empty day.
Life have we loved, through green leaf and through sere,
Though still the less we knew of its intent:
The Earth and Heaven through countless year on year,
Slow changing, were to us but curtains fair,
Hung round about a little room, where play
Weeping and laughter of man's empty day.
Spite of things left undone, and wrongly done,
Some place in loving hearts then should we get,
For thou, sweet-souled, didst never stand alone,
But knew’st the joy and woe of many an one —
—By lovers dead, who live through thee, we pray,
Help thou us singers of an empty day!"
Printed by STRANGEWAYS AND WALDEN Castle St. Leicester Sq.
