Seven Sets of Seven Songs, Set VI , opus 33

I said my pleasure shall not move;
It is not fixed in things apart:
Seeking not love -- but yet to love -- 
I put my trust in mine own heart.
 
I knew the fountain of the deep
Wells up with living joy, unfed:
Such joys the lonely heart may keep,
And love grow rich with love unwed.
 
Still flows the ancient fount sublime; -- 
But, ah, for my heart, shed tears, shed tears;
Not it, but love, has scorn of time,
It turns to dust beneath the years.

As one by one the veils took flight,	
The day withdrew, the stars came up.	
The spirit issued pale and bright	
Filling thy beauty like a cup.	
 
Sacred thy laughter on the air,	
Holy thy lightest word that fell,	
Proud the innumerable hair	
That waved at the enchanter's spell.	
 
O, Master of the Beautiful,	
Creating us from hour to hour,	
Give me this vision to the full	
To see in lightest things thy power.	
 
This vision give, no heaven afar,	
No throne, and yet I will rejoice	
Knowing beneath my feet a star	
Thy word in every wandering voice.	

How shallow is this mere that gleams!
Its depth of blue is from the skies,
And from a distant sun the dreams
And lovely light within your eyes.
 
We deem our love so infinite
Because the Lord is everywhere,
And love awakening is made bright
And bathed in that diviner air.
 
We go on our enchanted way
And deem our hours immortal hours,
Who are but shadow kings that play
With mirrored majesties and powers.

Though your eyes with tears were blind,
Pain upon the path you trod:
Well we knew, the hosts behind,
Voice and shining of a god.
 
For your darkness was our day:
Signal fires, your pains untold
Lit us on our wandering way
To the mystic heart of gold.
 
Naught we knew of the high land,
Beauty burning in its spheres;
Sorrow we could understand
And the mystery told in tears.

The hero first thought it
To him 'twas a deed:
To those who retaught it,
A chain on their speed.
 
The fire that we kindled,
A beacon by night,
When darkness has dwindled
Grows pale in the light.
 
For life has no glory
Stays long in one dwelling,
And time has no story
That's true twice in telling.
 
And only the teaching
That never was spoken
Is worthy thy reaching,
The fountain unbroken.

We laid him to rest with tenderness;
Homeward we turned in the twilight's gold;
We thought in ourselves with dumb distress --
All the story of earth is told.
 
A beautiful word at the last was said:
A great deep heart like the hearts of old
Went forth; and the speaker had lost the thread,
Or all the story of earth was told.
 
The dust hung over the pale dry ways
Dizzily fired with the twilight's gold,
And a bitter remembrance blew in each face
How all the story of earth was told.

When the dawn comes forth I wonder
Will our sad, sad hearts awaken,
And the grief we laboured under
From the new-in-joy be shaken?
 
If the night be long in going,
All our souls will fix in sadness;
And the light of morning glowing
Waken in our eyes no gladness.
 
All unschooled in mirth we will not
Rouse forgotten joys from sleeping;
And the dawn our pain shall still not:
We will gaze on it with weeping.