So I went for the news to the house of the news,
But the words were left unsaid,
For the face of the house was blank with blinds,
And I knew that she was dead.

XXXVII

'Twas in a world of living leaves
That we two reaped and bound our sheaves:
They were of white roses and red,
And in the scything they were dead.

Now the high Autumn flames afield,
And what is all his golden yield
To that we took, and sheaved, and bound
In the green dusk that gladdened round?

Yet must the memory grieve and ache
Of that we did for dear love's sake,
But may no more under the sun,
Being, like our summer, spent and done.

XXXVIII

Since those we love and those we hate,
With all things mean and all things great,
Pass in a desperate disarray
_Over the hills and far away_:

It must be, Dear, that, late or soon,
Out of the ken of the watching moon,
We shall abscond with Yesterday
_Over the hills and far away_.

What does it matter? As I deem,
We shall but follow as brave a dream
As ever smiled a wanton May
_Over the hills and far away_.

We shall remember, and, in pride,
Fare forth, fulfilled and satisfied,
Into the land of Ever-and-Aye,
_Over the hills and far away_.

XXXIX

These were the woods of wonder
We found so close and boon,
When the bride-month in her beauty
Lay mouth to mouth with June.

November, the old, lean widow,
Sniffs, and snivels, and shrills,
And the bowers are all dismantled,
And the long grass wets and chills;

And I hate these dismal dawnings,
These miserable even-ends,
These orts, and rags, and heeltaps--
This dream of being merely friends.

XL

'Dearest, when I am dead,
Make one last song for me:
Sing what I would have said--
Righting life's wrong for me.

'Tell them how, early and late,
Glad ran the days with me,
Seeing how goodly and great,
Love, were your ways with me.'

XLI

Dear hands, so many times so much
When the spent year was green and prime,
Come, take your fill, and touch
This one poor time.

Dear lips, that could not leave unsaid
One sweet-souled syllable of delight,
Once more--and be as dead
In the dead night.

Dear eyes, so fond to read in mine
The message of our counted years,
Look your proud last, nor shine
Through tears--through tears.

XLII

When, in what other life,
Where in what old, spent star,
Systems ago, dead vastitudes afar,
Were we two bird and