Return — of what was lost, and lost, and found, begin;
The harbour long shut fast is opened, keels come in.
Sing, Muse, the Maker — no first-comer on the road,
Whose craft the years devoured, whose labour rust corrode;
Not Scripture lip to lip till scribes confine the breath
In iron on the page — the living word to death;
He walks the path he walked before, to lift what fell:
Be seated. Face restored. The silence from the shelf.
First from the years, then from another's hand it went,
The same dear wound torn open twice — the same intent.
What vanishes once may still be sailing under sky;
What vanishes twice — the light goes out, the name must die.
The third time is not theft: behold the thing entire —
The face returned, the hush removed, the restored fire.
When weary hosts cry out to cut the lines and sail,
A will more stubborn than their plea holds every keel;
So almost-given, then withdrawn — the waiting shapes the day;
What is deferred becomes the ground you stand on anyway.
Stay — and the name holds fast, the years grow thin and spare;
Go — the name dissolves; the heavy count of years is there.
Two fires, one return: the blaze the distant world can see,
And hearth-flame answering only to a name and thee.
Hope sweeps the hall before the guest has turned the bend,
And names an hour the weary mile has yet to spend.
Should he return, the early dreamer cries, the riot ends —
The hour passes. Not a lie — a truth the road defends:
Too soon the vision; yet the vision was not false,
Only the mile was longer than the hopeful pulse.
As when the wave runs up the shingle, breaks, withdraws,
And runs again — the same in voice, not in the cause;
Not mirror of the last ascent, nor echo of its fall,
But kind replying kind, though never twice the same at all —
So what was lost, and lost, climbs back into the hand:
Not replica of the first — the first's command, renewed and manned.
Stand in that quiet till the ring is paid in full:
You came to rest; the lost sits present, beautiful.
Return — of what was lost, and lost, and found — the song
Does not end closed; the going keeps the road alive and strong.
The shore holds fast. What you hold, if you dare to keep,
Is this recovered face — and the question that will not sleep.