FAREWELL CHORUS
Who for a moment might have been the lost selves sought
Without avail, and whom we never shall find now.
Away, away! Yet now it is no longer in retreat
That we are leaving. All our will is drowned
As by an inner tidal·wave that has washed our regret
And small fears and exhausted implications out of mind.
You can't accompany our journey. Nor may we return
Except in unimpassioned recollection from beyond
That ever·nearer frontier that our fate has drawn.
2.
And so let's take a last look·round, and say Farewell to all
Events that gave the last decade, which this New Year
Brings to its close, a special pathos. Let us fill
One final fiery glass and quickly drink to "the Pre-War"
Before we greet the
"Forties.~"
whose unseen sphinx-face
Is staring fixedly upon us from behind its veil;
Drink farewell quickly, ere the Future smash the glass.
Even while underneath the floor are whirling on
The wheels which carry us towards some Time-to-Come,
Let us perform this hasty mental rite (as one
Might cast a few imagined bays into the tomb
Of an unloved but memorable great man) ;
21
Soon the still-near will seem remotely far; there's hardly time
For much oration more than mere Good-bye, again:
To the delusive peace of those disintegrating years
Through which burst uncontrollably into our view
Successive and increasingly premonitory flares,
Explosions of the dangerous truth beneath, which no
Steel-plated self-deception could for long withstand....
Years through the rising storm of which somehow we grew,
Struggling to keep an anchored heart and open mind,
Too often failing. Years through which none the less
The coaxing of complacency and sleep could still persuade
