Great silent heart! These barren drops of grief + 

Are not for you, attained unto your rest; + 

This sterile salt upon the withered leaf + 

Of love, is mine⁠—mine the dark burial guest. + 

Far, far within that deep, untroubled sea + 

We watched together, walking on the sands, + 

Your soul has melted⁠—painless, silent, free; + 

Mine the wrung heart, mine the clasped, useless hands. + 

Into the whirl of life, where none remember, + 

I bear your image, ever unforgot; + 

The “Whip-poor-will,” still “wailing in December,” + 

Cries the same cry⁠—cries, cries, and ceases not. + 

The future years with all their waves of faces + 

Roll shoreward singing the great undertone; + 

Yours is not there;⁠—in the old, well-loved places + 

I look, and pass, and watch the sea alone. + 

Alone along the gleaming, white sea-shore, + 

The sea-spume spraying thick around my head, + 

Through all the beat of waves and winds that roar, + 

I go, remembering that you are dead. + 

That you are dead, and nowhere is there one + 

Like unto you;⁠—and nowhere Love leaps Death;⁠— + 

And nowhere may the broken race be run;⁠— + 

Nowhere unsealed the seal that none gainsaith. + 

Yet in my ear that deep, sweet undertone + 

Grows deeper, sweeter, solemner to me⁠— + 

Dreaming your dreams, watching the light that shone + 

So whitely to you, yonder, on the sea. + 

Your voice is there, there in the great life-sound⁠— + 

Your eyes are there, out there, within the light; + 

Your heart, within the pulsing Race-heart drowned, + 

Beats in the immortality of Right. + 

O Life, I love you for the love of him + 

Who showed me all your glory and your pain! + 

“Unto Nirvana”⁠—so the deep tones sing⁠— + 

And there⁠—and there⁠—we⁠—shall⁠—be⁠—one⁠—again. + 