Euthanatos

In memory of Mrs. Thellusson

Forth of our ways and woes, Forth of the winds and snows, A white soul soaring goes, Winged like a dove: So sweet, so pure, so clear, So heavenly tempered here, Love need not hope or fear her changed above:
Ere dawned her day to die, So heavenly, that on high Change could not glorify Nor death refine her: Pure gold of perfect love, On earth like heaven's own dove, She cannot wear, above, a smile diviner.
Her voice in heaven's own quire Can sound no heavenlier lyre Than here: no purer fire Her soul can soar: No sweeter stars her eyes In unimagined skies Beyond our sight can rise than here before.
Hardly long years had shed Their shadows on her head: Hardly we think her dead, Who hardly thought her Old: hardly can believe The grief our hearts receive And wonder while they grieve, as wrong were wrought her.
But though strong grief be strong No word or thought of wrong May stain the trembling song, Wring the bruised heart, That sounds or sighs its faint Low note of love, nor taint Grief for so sweet a saint, when such depart.
A saint whose perfect soul, With perfect love for goal, Faith hardly might control, Creeds might not harden: A flower more splendid far Than the most radiant star Seen here of all that are in God's own garden.
Surely the stars we see Rise and relapse as we, And change and set, may be But shadows too: But spirits that man's lot Could neither mar nor spot Like these false lights are not, being heavenly true.
Not like these dying lights Of worlds whose glory smites The passage of the nights Through heaven's blind prison: Not like their souls who see, If thought fly far and free, No heavenlier heaven to be for souls rerisen.
A soul wherein love shone Even like the sun, alone, With fervour of its own And splendour fed, Made by no creeds less kind Toward souls by none confined, Could Death's self quench or blind, Love's self were dead.
February 4, 1881.