Here, where our two ways part, That, for a little time, ran side by side, That now must turn and turning must divide, Look, look and see how straight through Eden’s heart, Unbarred, unbroken, lay the double track; The dark has fallen and the sun has set, The world lies round us, limitless, and yet I will come back.
Across the plain of life There stretches this enchanted forest’s band, Haunted of crying voices, stirred and fanned, Swept through by airs whose breath, I know, is rife In that far bourn wherein no man may lack His sure fulfilment; look on leaf and flower-- In the dim dawn of some unnumbered hour I will come back.
So meet me here: good-bye; The light that lies on all this golden time Shall burn on the horizon and shall climb Like some vast city’s glow into the sky, Unquenched by darkness or the cloudy wrack; In flesh or spirit—which, it matters not, --Remembered or unlooked for or forgot-- I will come back.
❦