Memory Eternal
Songs of Sorrow and Solace on the Death of a Friend
In Memoriam
S.M.S. (1977-2017)
By S. M. Feir
I.
What comes to all has come to you,
The sister of my sundered soul,
The friend who on my life's poor scroll
Is drawn in rich and royal hue.
How comes it now that I am left
Without that voice I loved so well?
How can it be that you now dwell
With those who are of life bereft?
I do not know! I cannot say!
I cannot tell the reason why
You so untimely had to die.
too soon came night to drown your day.
II.
They say you are at peace, but why?
How can they know from what they see?
Death's servitors with artistry
Can give false comfort with this lie.
It is but flesh they have to hand.
they know not of your spirit's road,
How light or heavy is the load
You bear as you in judgment stand.
The dream of peace seems something good.
It seems to bid my sorrow rest.
But if I make this dream my guest,
I risk not grieving as I should.
If Christ Himself did grieve the friend
Whom to arise He would soon bid,
Then my poor tears need not be hid
For you whom I pray God defend.
III.
Souls meet, but must they part at last?
Must true heart's love be dimmed in death?
When stillness stops one body's breath,
Must friendship freeze the other fast?
Your hand I touch, and yet not so
For lifeless is its well-loved frame.
Though mockingly it shouts your name,
it is not now the hand I know.
So what becomes of one left here,
A soul still bound to time's great wheel?
Must I forget the love I feel,
Surrendering to doubt and fear?
This hand is not your hand, my friend,
But neither is it wholly strange.
I know its every curve and change,
And so, I think, love cannot end.
For if I know your hand as well
As you would doubtless know my own,
So deep within my heart is sown
A knowing which no tongue can tell.
IV.
Where is the bell whose sombre tone
Declares your death? Will it not ring?
Must death be such a silent thing,
Unheralded? Unsung? Unknown?
Oh yes, we gathered on that day.
We bade farewell to you in truth,
We mourned your too-soon-ended youth,
but gently, with no great display.
We should have keened! We should have wailed!
We should have beat our breasts in grief!
Your life was far and far too brief!
Your brightness was too-quickly paled!
Lamenting is not easy now
For those who grieve a loved one's loss.
We trade grief's gold for comfort's dross
Which cannot conquer "Why" or "How."
Grief comes because the loss is real!
The absence is as true as love!
Let black be worn! Do not remove
The sadness that all mortals feel!
V.
Come rhyme, come rhythm to my aid,
That I may cast my grief in song.
Let untamed sorrow, stark and strong,
To minstrelsy be subject made.
Though loss must come, it need not take
The art from out my burning brain.
The poet's pen can transmute pain
And leave but beauty in its wake.
So till again that beauty bright
Which we two ever sought to know
Be mine, I let my sorrows flow,
And soothe them slowly as I write.
VI.
What comes of hearing not how came
Your end? How can it not be known?
Can there no earthly cause be shown,
No fact to dim doubt's fever-flame?
One moment breathing, then the breath
Which was your last came fast and fleet.
Your heart gave out its final beat,
And life was swallowed up in death.
But no one knows how this could be,
How one so young could simply die
One day, her soul now free to fly,
O'ertaken by eternity.
Perhaps it matters not what thing,
What fleshly flaw snuffed out your light.
To know it would not end the fight
With frenzied sorrow's freezing sting.
For death is death, opposed to life!
No matter how it comes, it's wrong!
We hate it, so we stand our long
And weary watch, a bitter strife!
VII.
You lie where I have not yet been,
Entombed within a narrow space.
To me, it is an unknown place
of peace, I pray, mid pastures green.
A stone is set to mark your rest,
With dates of birth and death inscribed,
yet still, my soul has not imbibed
Its truth, a cold, unwanted guest.
How can you be where I am not?
How are we parted by that veil
Unpierced by human pleadings frail?
All unawares we two were caught.
VIII.
Will memory a bulwark prove
Against decay? I think not so,
For those whom we most deeply know
May be but fancies shaped by love.
As bright as are my thoughts of you,
My friend, beloved best of all,
Yet time must cast its dulling pall
And dim the things I thought I knew.
And in their place will love rebuild
A thing but of surmise alone,
And so the truth of you unknown
Will fade as I its flaws do gild.
Let not this be! Let me but catch
One glimpse of you, unburnished, scarred
And scathed by fortune, for, though marred,
It would be mockish memory's match.
IX.
Is grief vain or a vein of gold?
Are tears but trash or are they true?
Can I, in shedding them for you,
Unearth some truth as yet untold?
Is grief a crucible which may
In flame of passion temper me?
If not, I want it not to be!
I wish then for a brighter day.
And yet, as sages often tell,
If grief begets within the heart
some wisdom, then, though we must part,
I will have patience in this hell.
X.
Let words be ranged against the foe,
That black and voiceless thing, Despair,
For though its kiss kills all things fair,
Disclosure deals its mortal blow.
The silent soul is first to fall
Beneath the weight of chilling gloom,
For faced with coffin, shroud and tomb,
to fear and dread it kneels in thrall.
But grief, when groaned or wept or screamed,
Can sooner be assuaged by peace,
For though the loss will never cease,
some healing comes, unguessed, undreamed.
XI.
What life can lie beyond this round
Of days and nights which follow fast
Upon each others' heels and last
No longer than the breeze's sound?
I know I should with joyful song
Lift up my voice and sing of bliss
Unending and the great abyss
Of God's own love, secure and strong.
And yet I live from day to day,
From task to task and sleep to sleep,
And find my conscience cannot keep
Me fixed on Christ's eternal way.
You're gone too soon, my mind insists.
What matters immortality?
And so from prayer and peace I flee,
Still lost in mourning's clinging mists.
XII.
What I now seek I cannot find,
For you are gone I know not where.
Your friendship faithful, free and fair
Exists now only in my mind.
I think we knew each other more
Than any other here on earth,
And from our friendship's very birth,
We each the other's burdens bore.
We laughed, we cried, we talked, we sang.
We shared our wildest plans and dreams,
And in those visionary gleams,
In sympathy our spirits rang.
And now my spirit sings alone,
Or lonelier than once it did,
For knowing that you are now hid
In death, my heart is cold as stone.
XIII.
The world is wrong without you here.
With you now dead, all dreams are dust.
So sings my soul of misplaced trust.
In vain my heart weeps tear on tear.
I trusted transient things too well.
I never saw the coming blow.
indeed, how could I seek to know
the things eternity can tell?
I wander now where you are not,
And wonder how it can be true
That death has come so soon to you,
And all your life to nothing brought?
And what then can I say of me?
My life will end upon some day,
And in some hour my soul will stray.
The moths will spoil my tapestry.
XIV.
Is life but loss, or is there more
Than leaving those we know and love?
Must human joys all empty prove,
And love by death be wounded sore?
I loved you well, and yet know thought
Bestowed on you could ever save
Your living presence from the grave
Which brings all vanities to nought.
But was our friendship something vain?
Could nothing in our love abide?
Were we not by misfortune tried
And tempered by both joy and pain?
I wonder. Shall we ever meet
Again beyond mortality?
Can friendship in reality
Survive the sickle fell and fleet?
XV.
As comes the spring to break the hold
Of winter o'er the dreaming earth,
So into all my doubt and dearth
Comes steeling joy unguessed, untold.
I will not drive it hence with tears,
Or send it far on journey long,
But will instead live in its song
And let it soothe my mortal fears.
Though guilt comes howling round my door,
Accusing me of faithless love,
I know its words will empty prove,
For in this joy I love still more.
XVI.
Three times three months have come and gone.
Nine times the turning of the moon
Has brought me round, always too soon,
To darkness where no moon e'er shone.
Life moves within me, and the days
Do crowd upon me thick and fast,
But when I come to night at last,
Your loss still haunts and sadness stays.
All is not dark, I know, and yet,
From morn until I close my eyes,
I think of you in mortal guise,
that I may not yourself forget.
Your voice, your hand, the things you'd do,
I bring forever to my mind,
Perchance in them to somehow find
Your presence in these treasures few.
But though I keep with miser's care
these precious vestiges of love,
yet none of them a bulwark prove
Against your absence. It's still there!
XVII.
If words are all I have to give,
Then take them if you yet can hear.
These rhymes may never bring you near
To me, but here at least you live.
In turn of phrase, in tone of voice,
In all the little things we knew
And did together, I know you,
Though parting came not by our choice.
So here I sit and here I sing,
And bring you yet before my mind,
perchance within these words to find
What peace I can while grief is king.
XVIII.
He held it half a sin. Do I?
Are words too limiting to grief?
Perhaps they bring some scant relief.
I do not know. I can but try.
He said it soothed his fevered brain
The rhythm and the rhyme to make,
But I write when I feel the ache
Of absence keen with killing pain.
Do I then write to salve and heal,
Or do I use my words to pour
On wounds the stinging salt of more
Emotion than my soul need feel?
My friend is gone! That's all I know,
And words have always been my way
To find the path, though far I stray.
And as they come, so grief will go.
XIX.
The year creeps onto summer's height,
And, sun or rain, it matters not,
For scarce a second flees that thought
Of you does cease to tint its flight.
Your friendship formed my heart and mind
As potter's fingers form the clay,
And now you're gone I often find
Its stamp on all I do or say.
Yet echoes are but empty things,
Devoid of truth though seeming real,.
They can no novelty reveal.
They need a voice's borrowed wings.
XX.
As at deep dawn the robin sings,
His silver voice the first to call,
So into grief new joy will fall
As clear as leaping water springs.
I miss you still, but more and more,
Despite the loss of you, there comes
A fleeting happiness which numbs
The pain of absence sick and sore.
The robin sings his song to tell
The world that night can never last,
And though I'm often still downcast,
Some spark of joy in me does dwell.
THE END
Composed in 2017 and 2018.