Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Palingenesis lyrics

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.