Chapter 19
Poem 19 of 30 American Poems by various. The Recompense by Robert Hillier. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Matt Perard.
The Recompense. When the last song is sung and the last spark of light dies out forever, and the dark, the voiceless dark eternal, shrouds the earth. When the last cries of pain and shouts of mirth sink in the desolate silences of space, where then shall flower the beauty of your face?
O love the laughing, youth the rose in hand, in what unknown and discovered land shall flower then the beauty of your face? I know not, but I know that all returns, at last unchanged, and to the heart that yearns, shall be repaid all loneliness and loss. A ship, come with shadowy sails, shall fly across the shoreless ocean of infinity.
A ship from out the past and the great sea of life shall bear you from the strange worlds over the waves and back again to the old lover. Yes, in some future, far beyond surmise, you will dream here with half-remembering eyes, and I shall write these words, content a while in the slow round of time, to see you smile.
