Alas!

Alas for all high hopes and all desires!
Like leaves in yellow autumn-time they fall;
Alas for prayers and psalms and love's pure fires, —
One silence and one darkness ends them all!

Alas for all the world, — sad fleeting race!
Alas, my Love, for you and me, Alas!
Grim Death will clasp us in his close embrace;
We, too, like all the rest from earth must pass.

Alas to think we must forget some hours
Whereof the memory like Love's planet glows, —
Forget them as the year her withered flowers, —
Forget them as the June forgets the rose!

Our keenest rapture, our most deep despair.
Our hopes, our dreads, our laughter, and our tears
Shall be no more at all upon the air, —
No more at all, through all the endless years.

We shall be mute beneath the grass and dew
In that dark Kingdom where Death reigns in state, —
And you will be as I, and I as you —
One silence shed upon us, and one fate.