Chapter LVI

Peace, come away: the song of woe
Is after all an earthly song:
Peace, come away; we do him wrong
To sing so wildly; let us go.

Come, let us go, your cheeks are pale,
But half my life I leave behind;
Methinks my friend is richly shrined,
But I shall pass; my work will fail.

Yet in these ears till hearing dies,
One set slow bell will seem to toll
The passing of the sweetest soul
That ever looked with human eyes.

I hear it now, and o’er and o’er,
Eternal greetings to the dead;
And ‘Ave, Ave, Ave,’ said,
‘Adieu, adieu’ for evermore!

LVII.

In those sad words I took farewell:
Like echoes in sepulchral halls,
As drop by drop the water falls
In vaults and catacombs, they fell;

And, falling, idly broke the peace
Of hearts that beat from day to day,
Half-conscious of their dying clay,
And those cold crypts where they shall cease.

The high Muse answer’d: ‘Wherefore grieve
Thy brethren with a fruitless tear?
Abide a little longer here,
And thou shalt take a nobler leave.’