The Fallen Poet

NOW that the soul has left its throne
    Behind your mortal eyes,
And light, and colour and sound are gone
    From the body's palaces :
Still in his wood the blackbird calls,
    But there is one too few to hear :
And one too few to watch the trout
    Swim through the music of the weir.

And once I dreamt that you were gone,
    As dust upon the wave ;
Or, as a dropp in some deep well,
    That none could sort or save.
But falling low between the stars,
    So soon as I had such a fear,
At dusk and dawn a whisper came :
    'The dead are near: the dead are near.