Her grief and joy alike have turned to gold, And tears and laughter mingled to one end, With alchemy of living manifold: If Life so wrought, shall Death be less a friend? Nay, earth to heaven shall give the fairest face, Dimming the haughty beauties of the sky; Would I could see her softly take her place, Sweeping each splendour with her queenly eye!
O loveliest face, on which we look our last-- Not without hope we may again behold Somewhere, somehow, when we ourselves have passed Where, Lucy, you have gone, this face so dear, That gathered beauty every changing year, And made Youth dream of some day being old.
Some knew the girl, and some the woman grown, And each was fair, but always 'twas your way To be more beautiful than yesterday, To win where others lose; and Time, the doom Of other faces, brought to yours new bloom. Now, even from Death you snatch mysterious grace, This last perfection for your lovely face.
So with your spirit was it day by day, That spirit unextinguishably gay, That to the very border of the shade Laughed on the muttering darkness unafraid. We shall be lonely for your lovely face, Lonely for all your great and gracious ways, But for your laughter loneliest of all.
Yet in our loneliness we think of one Lonely no more, who, on the heavenly stair, Awaits your face, and hears your step at last, His dreamer's eyes a glory like the sun, Again in his sad arms to hold you fast, All your long honeymoon in heaven begun.
Thinking on that, O dear and loveliest friend, We, in that bright beginning of this end, Must bate our grief, and count our mortal loss Only as his and your immortal gain, Glad that for him and you it is so well.
Marshal of France, yet still the Musqueteer, Comrade at arms, on your bronzed cheek we press The soldier's kiss, and drop the soldier's tear; Brother by brother fought we in the stress Of the locked steel, all the wild work that fell For our reluctant doing; we that stormed hell And smote it down together, in the sun Stand here once more, with all our fighting done, Garlands upon our helmets, sword and lance Quiet with laurel, sharing the peace they won: Soldier that saved the world in saving France.
Soldier that saved the world in saving France, France that was Europe's dawn when light was none, Clear eyes that with eternal vigilance Pierce through the webs in nether darkness spun, Soul of man's soul, his sentinel upon The ramparts of the world: Ah! France, 'twas well This soldier with the sword of Gabriel Was yours and ours in all that dire duresse, This soldier, gentle as a child, that here Stands shy and smiling 'mid a world's caress-- Marshal of France, yet still the Musqueteer.