Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Little Book of Modern Verse. 1917.
Charles G. D. Roberts
The Recessional
N
Fade the Autumn’s altar-lights;
Down the great earth’s glimmering chancel
Glide the days and nights.
Like a shadow in a glass
Falls the dark and falls the stillness;
We must rise and pass.
Where the nights and days have ending,—
Pass in order pale and slow
Unto sleep extending.
Soul of fire and seed of sod,
We must fare into the silence
At the knees of God.
Wing to wing we wander by,
Going, going, going, going,
Softly as a sigh.
Globe of dew and gossamer,
Fading and ephemeral spirits
In the dusk astir.
Worlds must go as well as we,
In the long procession joining
Mount and star and sea.
Where the round year rolls sublime,
Rolls, and drops, and falls forever
In the vast of time.
Past the utmost reach of sleep,
Till remembrance has no longer
Care to laugh or weep.