Poems by Themis

Old Lovely Faces

Old lovely faces which have made

Our young lives pure, our wild hearts strong,

We come across our sorrow's shade

To you, adream with twilight song.

Back to your holy, quiet light,

And soft caress of words that free,

The smiling peace of star-brows white

With inward, distant majesty.

Upon your stillness to lay our pain,

And vagrancies of trembling nerves,

Our broken dreams and clotted brain

Of wounded thoughts your balm preserves.

The work you gave with silent gift

Unmurmuring, unproud of heart,

Is now the halo in the drift

Of cloud that folds you high, apart.

Old faces, mute with memories

Of sorrows borne in deepening strain,

Pain-cleaned, as in a storm the trees

Are hallowed to the heart by rain.

Because your joy is sorrow-sprung,

Your quiet silences will keep

Gathered life's splinterings we flung

Away — and fold us back to sleep.

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