The Everlasting Voices

Sweet sounds, begone --
Whose music on my ear
Stirs foolish discontent
Or lingering here;
When, if I crossed
The crystal verge of death,
Him I should see.
Who these sounds murmureth.

Sweet sounds, begone--
Ask not my heart to break
Its bond of bravery for
Sweet quiet's sake;
Lure not my feet
To leave the path they must
Tread on, unfaltering,
Till I sleep in dust.

Sweet sounds, begone!
Though silence brings apace
Deadly disquiet
Of this homeless place;
And all I love
In beauty cries to me,
"We but vain shadows
And reflections be."

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still;
Go to the guards of the heavenly fold
And bid them wander obeying your will,
Flame under flame, till Time be no more;
Have you not heard that our hearts are old,
That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,
In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.

"Who called?" I said, and the words
  Through the whispering glades,
Hither, thither, baffled the birds --
  "Who called? Who called?"

The leafy boughs on high
  Hissed in the sun;
The dark air carried my cry
  Faintingly on:

Eyes in the green, in the shade,
  In the motionless brake,
Voices that said what I said,
  For mockery's sake:

"Who cares?" I bawled through my tears;
  The wind fell low:
In the silence, "Who cares? who cares?"
  Wailed to and fro.