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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Flower-De-Luce: Palingenesis
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I lay upon the headland-height, and listened 
To the incessant sobbing of the sea 
    In caverns under me, 
And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened, 
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst 
    Melted away in mist. 

Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started; 
For round about me all the sunny capes 
    Seemed peopled with the shapes 
Of those whom I had known in days departed, 
Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams 
    On faces seen in dreams. 

A moment only, and the light and glory 
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore 
    Stood lonely as before; 
And the wild-roses of the promontory 
Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed 
    Their petals of pale red. 

There was an old belief that in the embers 
Of all things their primordial form exists, 
    And cunning alchemists 
Could re-create the rose with all its members 
From its own ashes, but without the bloom, 
    Without the lost perfume. 

Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science 
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more 
    The rose of youth restore? 
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance 
To time and change, and for a single hour 
    Renew this phantom-flower? 

"O, give me back," I cried, "the vanished splendors, 
The breath of morn, and the exultant strife, 
    When the swift stream of life 
Bounds o`er its rocky channel, and surrenders 
The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap 
    Into the unknown deep!" 

And the sea answered, with a lamentation, 
Like some old prophet wailing, and it said, 
    "Alas! thy youth is dead! 
It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation; 
In the dark places with the dead of old 
    It lies forever cold!" 

Then said I, "From its consecrated cerements 
I will not drag this sacred dust again, 
    Only to give me pain; 
But, still remembering all the lost endearments, 
Go on my way, like one who looks before, 
    And turns to weep no more." 

Into what land of harvests, what plantations 
Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow 
    Of sunsets burning low; 
Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations 
Light up the spacious avenues between 
    This world and the unseen! 

Amid what friendly greetings and caresses, 
What households, though not alien, yet not mine, 
    What bowers of rest divine; 
To what temptations in lone wildernesses, 
What famine of the heart, what pain and loss, 
    The bearing of what cross! 

I do not know; nor will I vainly question 
Those pages of the mystic book which hold 
    The story still untold, 
But without rash conjecture or suggestion 
Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed, 
    Until "The End" I read.
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