Mother Of Exiles

What far--off trouble steals In soft--blown drifts of glimmering rain? What is it the wind feels, What sighing of what old home--seeking pain Among the hurried footsteps and the wheels, The living low continual roar Of night and London? What is it comes near, Felt like a blind man's touch along the wall Questing, and strange, like fear, Lets a lone silence 'mid the turmoil fall, Makes the long street seem vaster than before, And the tall lamp, above dim passers--by, Gleam solitary as on an ocean shore. Ships on far tracks are stemming through the night; South, east and west by foreign stars they steer; Another half--world in the sun lies bright; The darkness and the wind are here. And now the rare late footfall scarce is heard, But the wind cries along the emptied street. In cowering lamp--light flicker the fine drops To vanish wildly blurred; A hunted sky flies over the housetops. Importunate gusts beat Shaking the windows, knocking at the doors As with phantasmal hands, A crying as of spirits from far shores And the bright under--lands, Seeking one place That is to each eternal in the hue, The light, the shadow of some certain hour, One pang--like moment, years cannot efface. O infinite remoteness, near and new! O corner where friend parted from his friend! O door of the first kiss, the last embrace! O day when all was possible, O end Irrevocable! O dream--feet that pace One street, dear to the dead! O London stones, that glimmer in the rain, With bliss, with pain, have you not also bled?