To-morrow

The lighthouse shines across the sea;
The homing fieldfares sing for glee:
"Behold the shore!"
Alas for shattered wing and breast!
The lighthouse breakers make their nest,
And hedges bloom for them no more--
No more.


In their old church the lovers stand.
His wedding ring is on her hand,
All partings o'er.
Alas for mother still and cold,
The babe her dead young arms enfold!
Her lover will know love no more--
No more.


What fate is this for birds and men?--
The blue empyrean theirs--and then--
This fast-closed door.
One answers from his bended knee:
"Another morrow comes," saith he,
"A day that brings the night no more--
No more."


Ah, happy one! Yet happier he
Who knows he knows not what will be;
Who has no lore
To read the runes of life and death,
But lives his best while he has breath,
And leaves with God the evermore--
The evermore.