Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Sydney Dobell. 18241874766. Return!
RETURN, return! all night my lamp is burning, | |
All night, like it, my wide eyes watch and burn; | |
Like it, I fade and pale, when day returning | |
Bears witness that the absent can return, | |
Return, return. | 5 |
Like it, I lessen with a lengthening sadness, | |
Like it, I burn to waste and waste to burn, | |
Like it, I spend the golden oil of gladness | |
To feed the sorrowy signal for return, | |
Return, return. | 10 |
Like it, like it, whene’er the east wind sings, | |
I bend and shake; like it, I quake and yearn, | |
When Hope’s late butterflies, with whispering wings, | |
Fly in out of the dark, to fall and burn— | |
Burn in the watchfire of return, | 15 |
Return, return. | |
Like it, the very flame whereby I pine | |
Consumes me to its nature. While I mourn | |
My soul becomes a better soul than mine, | |
And from its brightening beacon I discern | 20 |
My starry love go forth from me, and shine | |
Across the seas a path for thy return, | |
Return, return. | |
Return, return! all night I see it burn, | |
All night it prays like me, and lifts a twin | 25 |
Of palmèd praying hands that meet and yearn— | |
Yearn to the impleaded skies for thy return. | |
Day, like a golden fetter, locks them in, | |
And wans the light that withers, tho’ it burn | |
As warmly still for thy return; | 30 |
Still thro’ the splendid load uplifts the thin | |
Pale, paler, palest patience that can learn | |
Naught but that votive sign for thy return— | |
That single suppliant sign for thy return, | |
Return, return. | 35 |
Return, return! lest haply, love, or e’er | |
Thou touch the lamp the light have ceased to burn, | |
And thou, who thro’ the window didst discern | |
The wonted flame, shalt reach the topmost stair | |
To find no wide eyes watching there, | 40 |
No wither’d welcome waiting thy return! | |
A passing ghost, a smoke-wreath in the air, | |
The flameless ashes, and the soulless urn, | |
Warm with the famish’d fire that lived to burn— | |
Burn out its lingering life for thy return, | 45 |
Its last of lingering life for thy return, | |
Its last of lingering life to light thy late return, | |
Return, return. |