James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
October 31All Souls Day
By Rosamund Marriott Watson (18601911)T
For strange and sweet communion set apart,
When the strong, living heart
Beats in the dissolute dust, the darkened bed,
Rebuilds the form beloved, the vanished face,
Relight the blown-out lamps o’ the faded eyes,
Touches the clay-bound lips to tenderest speech,
Saying, “Awake—Arise!”
To-day the warm hands of the living reach
To chafe the cold hands of the long-loved dead;
Once more the lonely head
Leans on a living breast, and feels the rain
Of falling tears, and listens yet again
To the dear voice—the voice that never in vain
Could sound the old behest.
That sacred shrine beneath the solemn sky;
I claim no commerce with the unforgot.
Even where mine own fixed lot hereafter lies,
With that great company
For whom no wandering breeze of memory sighs
Through the dim prisons of imperial Death:
They in the black, unfathomed oubliette
For ever and ever set—
They, the poor dead whom none remembered.