Frederick Philip Grove
THE DIRGE
(IM 15, 1-33)

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e-Edition by Gaby Divay
© August 2007

University of Manitoba Libraries	FPG & FrL Collections	University of Manitoba Archives

XXVII. "My child... by Frederick Philip Grove My child, if from the circumambient air With eyes unseen thou seest--if thou still Such as thou wert--and thou wert ever fair-- Hover'st amid these trees, above this hill-- Or if thy spirit, recaught in that broad stream Whence life flows, steadily mirrors yet, Dispersed into its elements, a gleam Of this unquiet earth where we still fret-- Or if, in everlasting slumber cast, The dead still dream of what was once their lot, In summer nights perhaps when things long past Revive at evenfall, things long forgot-- No matter how, if in some unthought way We are not lost to these as thou to us, If that which lived in thee was not all clay And thou perceiv'st: Then wilt thou know us thus: Where once we roamed, we linger now and stand; Where once we looked ahead, we now look back. Thus does a wanderer from some height of land Through fields and orchards still survey his track; Because he knows that he must leave the vales And thread the desert through a lurid dusk; There will his memories serve for camp-fire tales: The fruit is lost; but love retains its husk. For thou wert all in all; to us; and we Can hope but for a day when once again What thou wert, transfigured, thou wilt be: A beacon light to steer by on life's main. In Memoriam 15/27