I. I LAY and dreamed beside a stream's well-head, And praised the waters cool beyond compare; My fain lips met a fresher likeness there But drank a draught as salt as tears new shed. And, knowing from no sea the stream was fed, I wondered greatly, as I grew aware How wearily a wayworn people fare For evermore beside that river's bed. For, silently as walk the fleshless dead, They went along, and each one on his head Held straight a water-jar; no two the same, Yet e'en the least a burden hard to bear, And each, when to the river's spring he came, Poured from his urn its weight of water there. II. I saw them pass me, ghostly, hollow-eyed, With faces dreamy-still, forlorn of pain, And did not dare to break their solemn chain Till, bold with fear, I thought: Whate'er betide This secret I must learn -- and trembling cried: Oh ye wind-walking wanderers I am fain To know ye and your fate, are ye dead men? Or exiled souls whose bodies have not died? Then one made answer: We are they that grieved Through God's decree, that grieved and murmured not, Nor would forestall the end that He reprieved; And after Death, ere Life be quite forgot We gather all our outgrown loss and fears And feed the stream of Life with these our tears. |