Page:A New Zealand verse (1906).pdf/71
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In London.
35
How far from this thy peacefulness am I!Ah me, how far! and far this stream of LifeFrom thy clear creek fast falling to the sea!
Yet let me not lament that these things areIn that lov’d country I shall see no more;All that has been is mine inviolate,Lock’d in the secret book of memory.And though I change, my valley knows no change.And when I look on London’s teeming streets,On grim grey houses, and on leaden skies,When speech seems but the babble of a crowd,And music fails me, and my lamp of lifeBurns low, and Art, my mistress, turns from me,—Then do I pass beyond the Gate of DreamsInto my kingdom, walking unconstrainedBy ways familiar under Southern skies;Nor unaccompanied; the dear dumb thingsI lov’d once, have their immortality.There too is all fulfilment of desire:In this the valley of my ParadiseI find again lost ideals, dreams too fairFor lasting; there I meet once more mine ownWhom Death has stolen, or Life estranged from me;And thither, with the coming of the dark,Thou comest, and the night is full of stars.