In Memory of Edward Butler
A voice of grave, deep emphasisIs in the woods to-night;No sound of radiant day is this,No cadence of the light.Here in the fall and flights of leavesAgainst grey widths of sea,The spirit of the forests grievesFor lost Persephone.
The fair divinity that rovesWhere many waters singDoth miss her daughter of the groves—The golden-headed Spring.She cannot find the shining handThat once the rose caressed;There is no blossom on the land,No bird in last year’s nest.
Here, where this strange Demeter weeps—This large, sad life unseen—Where July’s strong, wild torrent leapsThe wet hill-heads between,I sit and listen to the grief,The high, supreme distress,Which sobs above the fallen leafLike human tenderness!
Where sighs the sedge and moans the marsh,The hermit plover calls;The voice of straitened streams is harshBy windy mountain walls;There is no gleam upon the hillsOf last October’s wings;The shining lady of the rillsIs with forgotten things.
Now where the land’s worn face is greyAnd storm is on the wave,What flower is left to bear awayTo Edward Butler’s grave?What tender rose of song is hereThat I may pluck and sendAcross the hills and seas austereTo my lamented friend?
There is no blossom left at all;But this white winter leaf,Whose glad green life is past recall,Is token of my grief.Where love is tending growths of grace,The first-born of the Spring,Perhaps there may be found a placeFor my pale offering.
For this heroic Irish heartWe miss so much to-day,Whose life was of our lives a part,What words have I to say?Because I know the noble woeThat shrinks beneath the touch—The pain of brothers stricken low—I will not say too much.
But often in the lonely spaceWhen night is on the land,I dream of a departed face—A gracious, vanished hand.And when the solemn waters rollAgainst the outer steep,I see a great, benignant soulBeside me in my sleep.
Yea, while the frost is on the waysWith barren banks austere,The friend I knew in other daysIs often very near.I do not hear a single tone;But where this brother gleams,The elders of the seasons flownAre with me in my dreams.
The saintly face of Stenhouse turns—His kind old eyes I see;And Pell and Ridley from their urnsArise and look at me.By Butler’s side the lights revealThe father of his fold,I start from sleep in tears, and feelThat I am growing old.
Where Edward Butler sleeps, the waveIs hardly ever heard;But now the leaves above his graveBy August’s songs are stirred.The slope beyond is green and still,And in my dreams I dreamThe hill is like an Irish hillBeside an Irish stream.