Finale - The Wayside Inn - Part Third

These are the tales those merry guests     Told to each other, well or ill;     Like summer birds that lift their crests     Above the borders of their nests     And twitter, and again are still.     These are the tales, or new or old,     In idle moments idly told;     Flowers of the field with petals thin,     Lilies that neither toil nor spin,     And tufts of wayside weeds and gorse     Hung in the parlor of the inn     Beneath the sign of the Red Horse.     And still, reluctant to retire,     The friends sat talking by the fire     And watched the smouldering embers burn     To ashes, and flash up again     Into a momentary glow,     Lingering like them when forced to go,     And going when they would remain;     For on the morrow they must turn     Their faces homeward, and the pain     Of parting touched with its unrest     A tender nerve in every breast.     But sleep at last the victory won;     They must be stirring with the sun,     And drowsily good night they said,     And went still gossiping to bed,     And left the parlor wrapped in gloom.     The only live thing in the room     Was the old clock, that in its pace     Kept time with the revolving spheres     And constellations in their flight,     And struck with its uplifted mace     The dark, unconscious hours of night,     To senseless and unlistening ears.     Uprose the sun; and every guest,     Uprisen, was soon equipped and dressed     For journeying home and city-ward;     The old stage-coach was at the door,     With horses harnessed, long before     The sunshine reached the withered sward     Beneath the oaks, whose branches hoar     Murmured: "Farewell forevermore."     "Farewell!" the portly Landlord cried;     "Farewell!" the parting guests replied,     But little thought that nevermore     Their feet would pass that threshold o'er;     That nevermore together there     Would they assemble, free from care,     To hear the oaks' mysterious roar,     And breathe the wholesome country air.     Where are they now?    What lands and skies     Paint pictures in their friendly eyes?     What hope deludes, what promise cheers,     What pleasant voices fill their ears?     Two are beyond the salt sea waves,     And three already in their graves.     Perchance the living still may look     Into the pages of this book,     And see the days of long ago     Floating and fleeting to and fro,     As in the well-remembered brook     They saw the inverted landscape gleam,     And their own faces like a dream     Look up upon them from below.