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Title: Sunset-Lovers
Author: Cale Young Rice [
More Titles by Rice]
Upon how many a hill,
Across how many a field,
Beside how many a river's restful flowing,
They stand, with eyes a-thrill,
And hearts of day-rue healed,
Gazing, O wistful sun, upon thy going!
They have forgotten life,
Forgotten sunless death;
Desire is gone--is it not gone for ever?
No memory of strife
Have they, or pain-sick breath.
No hopes to fear or fears hope cannot sever.
Silent the gold steals down
The west, and mystery
Moves deeper in their hearts and settles darker.
'Tis faded--the day's crown;
But strange and shadowy
They see the Unseen as night falls stark and starker.
Like priests whose altar fires
Are spent, immovable
They stand, in awful ecstasy uplifted.
Zephyrs awake tree-lyres,
The starry deeps are full,
Earth with a mystic majesty is gifted.
Ah, sunset-lovers, though
Time were but pulsing pain,
And death no more than its eternal ceasing,
Would you not choose the throe,
Hold the oblivion vain,
To have beheld so many a day's releasing?
[The end]
Cale Young Rice's poem: Sunset-Lovers
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