THE GRAVE-SONG
"'Yonder is the island of graves, the silent. Yonder also are the graves of my youth. Thither will I carry an evergreen wreath of life.'
Resolving this in my heart I went over the sea.
Oh, ye, ye visions and apparitions of my youth! Oh, all ye glances of love, ye divine moments! How could ye die so quickly for me! This day I think of you as of my dead ones.
From your direction, my dearest dead ones, a sweet odour cometh unto me, an odour setting free heart and tears. Verily, it shaketh and setteth free the heart of the lonely sailor.
Still I am the richest and he who is to be envied most I, the loneliest! For I have had you, and ye have me still. Say, for whom as for me have such rose apples fallen from the tree?
Still I am the heir and soil of your love, flourishing in memory of you with many-coloured wild-growing virtues, O ye dearest!
Alas, we had been made to remain nigh unto each other, ye kind, strange marvels! And ye came not unto me and my desire, as shy birds do. Nay, ye came as trusting ones unto a trusting one!
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