We do not know that we have lived before;
We can but hope that we shall live again,
Unless the grief that stings though it be o'er
Subdue submission's fain but faint amen.
So dark the chance of life, the chance of death
To darker issue still may lead the way,
Like some black angel with a torch whose breath
Crimsons a night more dread than dreadest day.
But yet, if it be well we should have been,
It will be well should we not cease to be
Until, through deathful life, we enter in
Where life and death are tuned to ecstasy.
Ah, friend, in that long birthday may we meet,
To bless the bitterness that ended sweet.— Albert Edmund Lancaster