Three days I heard them grieve when I lay dead,
(It was so strange to me that they should weep!)
Tall candles burned about me in the dark,
And a great crucifix was on my breast,
And a great silence filled the lonesome room.
I heard one whisper, “Lo! the dawn is breaking,
And he has lost the wonder of the day.”
Another came whom I had loved on earth,
And kissed my brow and brushed my dampened hair.
Softly she spoke: “Oh, that he should not see
The April that his spirit bathed in! Birds
Are singing in the orchard, and the grass
That soon will cover him is growing green.
The daisies whiten on the emerald hills,
And the immortal magic that he loved
Wakens again—and he has fallen asleep.”
Another said: “Last night I saw the moon
Like a tremendous lantern shine in heaven,
And I could only think of him—and sob.
For I remembered evenings wonderful
When he was faint with Life’s sad loveliness,
And watched the silver ribbons wandering far
Along the shore, and out upon the sea.
Oh, I remembered how he loved the world,
The sighing ocean and the flaming stars,
The everlasting glamour God has given—
His tapestries that wrap the earth’s wide room.
I minded me of mornings filled with rain
When he would sit and listen to the sound
As if it were lost music from the spheres.
He loved the crocus and the hawthorn-hedge,
He loved the shining gold of buttercups,
And the low droning of the drowsy bees
That boomed across the meadows. He was glad
At dawn or sundown; glad when Autumn came
With her worn livery and scarlet crown,
And glad when Winter rocked the earth to rest.
Strange that he sleeps today when Life is young,
And the wild banners of the Spring are blowing
With green inscriptions of the old delight.”
I heard them whisper in the quiet room.
I longed to open then my sealèd eyes,
And tell them of the glory that was mine.
There was no darkness where my spirit flew,
There was no night beyond the teeming world.
Their April was like winter where I roamed;
Their flowers were like stones where now I fared.
Earth’s day! it was as if I had not known
What sunlight meant!… Yea, even as they grieved
For all that I had lost in their pale place,
I swung beyond the borders of the sky,
And floated through the clouds, myself the air,
Myself the ether, yet a matchless being
Whom God had snatched from penury and pain
To draw across the barricades of heaven.
I climb beyond the sun, beyond the moon;
In flight on flight I touched the highest star;
I plunged to regions where the Spring is born,
Myself (I asked not how) the April wind,
Myself the elements that are of God.
Up flowery stairways of eternity
I whirled in wonder and untrammeled joy,
An atom, yet a portion of His dream—
His dream that knows no end….
I was the rain,
I was the dawn, I was the purple east,
I was the moonlight on enchanted nights,
(Yet time was lost to me); I was a flower
For one to pluck who loved me; I was bliss,
And rapture, splendid moments of delight;
And I was prayer, and solitude, and hope;
And always, always, always I was love.
I tore asunder flimsy doors of time,
And through the windows of my soul’s new sight
I saw beyond the ultimate bounds of space.
I was all things that I had loved on earth—
The very moonbeam in that quiet room,
The very sunlight one had dreamed I lost,
The soul of the returning April grass,
The spirit of the evening and the dawn,
The perfume in unnumbered hawthorn-blooms.
There was no shadow on my perfect peace,
No knowledge that was hidden from my heart.
I learned what music meant; I read the years;
I found where rainbows hide, where tears begin;
I trod the precincts of things yet unborn.
Yea, while I found all wisdom (being dead),
They grieved for me … I should have grieved for them!
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Comments
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I was directed here by my friend Vonnie How pleased i was to have take her recommendation to read .It is a wonderful piece that indicates that death is not the end of life but the real beginning of it
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Simply wonderful
Like mantell and Vonnie, I keep coming back to this wonderful poet and he should be recognized more. I especially love this beautiful poem and I enjoy reading it, especially how his spirit saw and heard everything that occured around him.
angelica
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Great
I really liked all the descriptive words you used in this piece, and the way the man wanted to grieve for them and wondered why they grieved for him. I think this poem deserves more than the 90 something reviews it as and they better all be good! -
I have left comments on this poem before (attributed to "Unknown"); but I am inspired to re-visit it again and explore more deeply a poem that strikes a note of universality achieved only by the greatest poets. Such being the case -- and I can't imagine anyone with any degree of sensibility reading this poem without being profoundly moved -- then the question must be asked, "Why is this priceless gem known to so few and the poet himself almost completely unknown?" Is it because he was a classic formalist poet in an age that had lost the ability to appreciate great new effusions in rhyme and meter and was loathe to admit new aspirants to a Parnassus that had already been abandoned, as old cemeteries are when they are full? If Hanson had lived 100 years earlier, he, too, would have been "canonized" and would today be found in anthologies alongside Longfellow and Tennyson -- poets who are still admired today if not emulated. But poor Hanson and his age were not properly matched, and more even than greatness poets must belong to their own time in order to be immortal.
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What awesome beauty to bring me to tears...love unfolds even now in ways that transccend the bought & sold of this world. I gently weep.
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I have come back for a second time to re-read this wonderful poem of such depth and empathy. I did read excerpts at a recent funeral, the family appreciated, and related to every word of this, as if written for their Mother.
It is one of my serious favourites.
Vonny -
Textbook publishers, and the hordes who learn to love or loathe poetry because of them, have a fixed idea in their heads that true poetic inspiration, in contrast to lightning, must strike hundreds of times in the same spot before they can bestow the anthological honors due to genius. So it happens that many great poets, who compressed into a few poems or even one poem the same force of Nature that is more evenly diffused in famous prolific poets, are denied unjustly their place on Parnassus. Such is the case with the admirable but wholly unadmired Charles Hanson Towne (1877-1949), whose beautiful meditation on dying Vonn has resurrected for us. A word which I am pleased is used often on oldpoetry is "beautiful." I can almost see the dogmatic critics of poetry cringing at the very mention of that word. "Beautiful" is not part of their trade vocabulary because it negates their very existence, since "beautiful," in its broadest application in this context, means "everything is alright with this poem." And that is a verdict very few critics are confident enough to pronounce, or generous enough to let stand unchallenged.
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I'm reading an excerpt (L65 to L88) from this beautifully written poem at a funeral on Wednesday 6th July. I found it by pure chance, or perhaps it found me.
The chosen section literally leaped off the page for me, it speaks so well of the Lady recently passed. She was a beautiful Pianist, appreciated poetry (related to Ruth Pitter on this site) and the world around her and grieved for the loss of being able to enjoy it so much in her later years. It was written in the year of her birth and it feels as if written for her.
It's beautiful, serene and I found it to be reassuring for the loved ones during their grieving process.
Mr Towne looks to be a very serious man, who could know that he had such a depth of understanding and an empathy to suit such a sad occasion as a funeral of a loved soul.
Perfectly written,
Vonnie~~
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