I.

When ye stood up in the house With your little childish feet, And, in touching Life's first shows, First the touch of Love did meet,-- Love and Nearness seeming one, By the heartlight cast before, And of all Beloveds, none Standing farther than the door; Not a name being dear to thought, With its owner beyond call; Not a face, unless it brought Its own shadow to the wall; When the worst recorded change Was of apple dropt from bough, When love's sorrow seemed more strange Than love's treason can seem now;-- Then, the Loving took you up Soft, upon their elder knees, Telling why the statues droop Underneath the churchyard trees, And how ye must lie beneath them Through the winters long and deep, Till the last trump overbreathe them, And ye smile out of your sleep. Oh, ye lifted up your head, and it seemed as if they said A tale of fairy ships With a swan-wing for a sail; Oh, ye kissed their loving lips For the merry merry tale-- So carelessly ye thought upon the Dead!