Primum Mobile
When thou art gone, then all the rest will go;
Mornings no more shall dawn,
Roses no more shall blow,
Thy lovely face withdrawn—
Nor woods grow green again after the snow;
For of all these thy beauty was the dream,
The soul, the sap, the song;
To thee the bloom and beam
Of flower and star belong,
And all the beauty thine of bird and stream.
Thy bosom was the moonrise, and the morn
The roses of thy cheek,
No lovely thing was born
But of thy face did speak—
How shall all these endure, of thee forlorn?
The sad heart of the world grew glad through thee,
Happy, men toiled and spun
That had thy smile for fee;
So flowers seek the sun,
So singing rivers hasten to the sea.
Yet, though the world, bereft, should bleakly bloom,
And wanly make believe
Against the general doom,
For me the earth you leave
Shall be for ever but a haunted room;
Yea! though my heart beat on a little space,
When thou art strangely gone
To thy far hiding-place,
Soon shall I follow on,
Out-footing Death to over-take thy face.
