Thy spirit ere our fatal loss Did ever rise from high to higher; As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, As flies the lighter thro’ the gross.
But thou art turn’d to something strange, And I have lost the links that bound Thy changes; here upon the ground; No more partaker of thy change.
Deep folly! yet that this could be-- That I could wing my will with might To leap the grades of life and light, And flash at once, my friend, to thee:
For though my nature rarely yields To that vague fear implied in death; Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath, The howlings from forgotten fields;
Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor An inner trouble I behold, A spectral doubt which makes me cold, That I shall be thy mate no more,
Tho’ following with an upward mind The wonders that have come to thee, Thro’ all the secular to be, But evermore a life behind.