Leigh Gordon Giltner

To One Who Sleeps

       (Obiit, June 8th, 1894.)

Tho' storm and summer shine for long have shed
Or blight or bloom above thy quiet bed,
Tho' loneliness and longing cry thee dead--
Thou art not dead, belovèd. Still with me
Are whilom hopings that encompass thee
And dreams of dear delights that may not be.
Asleep--adream perchance, dost thou forget
The sometime sorrow and the fevered fret,
Sting of salt tears and long unbreathed regret?
Liest thou here thro' long sunshiny hours,
Holding sweet converse with the springing flowers,
Harking the singing of the warm sweet showers
That fall like happy tears ... dost hear
The birds that unafraid assail thine ear--
And yet art silent when I whisper? Dear,
      Dost thou not hear?

Lying so low beneath the bending grass
In long, still smiling tranced for aye--alas!
Thou dost not harken when my footsteps pass.
If haply I some tender thing should tell
Thee of the springtime flowers thou once loved well--
Anemone and shining asphodel;
Should steal from Nature some enchanted lay,
Some bird-song lilted where green branches sway--
Heart-music that could stir thy heart alway;
Should call thee by the old fond name again,
Should tell thee all a heart's enduring pain
And long rememb'ring, would'st thou mute remain?
Alas! nor sigh nor song can thrill the ear
Tuned to Israfel's music in the sphere
Where things to thee erst dear no more are dear.
      Thou dost not hear!