A star in the moondawn of Maytime,
A star in the cloudland of change;
Too splendid and sad for the daytime
To cheer or eclipse or estrange;
Too sweet for tradition or vision
To see but through shadows of tears
Rise deathless across the division
Of measureless years.

The twilight may deepen and harden
As nightward the stream of it runs
Till starshine transfigure a garden
Whose radiance responds to the sun's:
The light of the love of thee darkens
The lights that arise and that set:
The love that forgets thee not hearkens
If England forget.


II

Bright and brief in the sight of grief and love the light of thy
lifetime shone,
Seen and felt by the gifts it dealt, the grace it gave, and again
was gone:
Ay, but now it is death, not thou, whom time has conquered as years
pass on.

Ay, not yet may the land forget that bore and loved thee and
praised and wept,