The Death of Richard Wagner

I.

Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,

Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth

Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend

Mourning on earth.

The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,

Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend,

Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth.

Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend,

Thunders, and sound of tides in gulf and firth,

Spake through his spirit of speech, whose death should send

Mourning on earth.

II.

The world's great heart, whence all things strange and rare

Take form and sound, that each inseparate part

May bear its burden in all tuned thoughts that share

The world's great heart

The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start

Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air,

Seas that revolve and rivers that depart -

Spake, and were turned to song:    yea, all they were,

With all their works, found in his mastering art

Speech as of powers whose uttered word laid bare

The world's great heart.

III.

From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the wastes of the midmost night,

From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be,

The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light

From the depths of the sea.

As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god might see,

Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a form, a might,

And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message against him, and may not flee.

Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark delight,

With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of thought set free,

Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn risen to sight

From the depths of the sea.