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Longer version (1912):
And thou art dead!
Closed by the door!
Thy page is read,
Thy task is o'er;
Across the sky
The crescent bark
Of day passed by
To after-dark.
No more the thrush
To rapture grows,
A death-like hush
Is on the rose;
One dewy tear,
One sign, one moan,
One grief to bear,
The world alone.
No merry peals
Ring in the lane;
Now silence steals,
Steals on the brain;
A sense of fate,
Of wrath to come,
Of fears too late,
And musings dumb.
The finger-tips
Of Him that gave
Pressed firm thy lips;
And o'er the wave
As shoots a beam,
Forth from thy breast
Thy dying dream
Winged in the west.
And on thine eyes
A dimness came,
As evening skies
Are flushed with flame
So sunset burned
Upon thy sight,
And swiftly turned
To low-browed night.
The mother mourns
Beside the cot,
The infant turns
And knows thee not;
Upon the grass,
With noiseless tread,
The neighbours pass,
And name thee dead.
But thou had'st neared
Thy span of time,
And long had'st heard,
The evening chime;
The shadows fell
Aslant thy way,
On wood and dell,
At hush of day.
Low in the West
The laste beam shone,
Slow heaved thy breast
With memories gone;
The waning tide
Ebbed on the shore,
And outward plied
To turn no more.
Weave him no flower,
Save such as grew
At twilight hour
Dim in the dew;
Leaves red and brown
Upon a cross,
Or careless crown
Of scented moss.
Nor o'er his grave
Expend a tomb,
Nor marbles have
To show his doom;
The simple earth
Above his breast
Will tell his birth
And fortune best.
Nor do you weep
That he is gone;
Lo! as we sleep
The hour steals on;
A breath, a space,
A day, no more!
So soon the race
Of Life is o'er.
Here we have met,
We know not why;
Suns rise and set,
And moons wane by,
Awhile we feed
A tiny flame,
And dying speed
To whence we came.
Shorter version (1925):
And thou art dead!
Closed by the door!
Thy page is read,
Thy task is o'er;
Across the sky
The crescent bark
Of day passed by
To after-dark.
No more the thrush
To rapture grows,
A death-like hush
Is on the rose;
One dewy tear,
One sign, one moan,
One grief to bear,
The world alone.
The mother mourns
Beside the cot,
The infant turns
And knows thee not;
Upon the grass,
With noiseless tread,
The neighbours pass,
And name thee dead.
Weave him no flower,
Save such as grew
At twilight hour
Dim in the dew;
Leaves red and brown
Upon a cross,
Or careless crown
Of scented moss.
Nor do you weep
That he is gone;
Lo! as we sleep
The hour steals on;
A breath, a space,
A day, no more!
So soon the race
Of Life is o'er.
Here we have met,
We know not why;
Suns rise and set,
And moons wane by,
Awhile we feed
A tiny flame,
And dying speed
To whence we came.
This poem is probably about the death of Charlie Ockwell, who grew up with Alfred Williams. The two even lived at the same address when very young (as shown in the 1881 census of South Marston). Charlie left South Marston for Bristol to become an engine driver, eventually marrying Esther Loxton in 1903 - the same year that Alfred married Mary. The Ockwells had two children, and Esther was pregnant with the third when Charlie died of appendicitis. Alfred was clearly filled with grief over Charlie's death as he apparently wrote two poems about it - this one and On The Death of My Old Playmate, Charlie Ockwell.
See also Me and Alfred: Caroline Ockwell
Title photography by Richard Bradshaw
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