IF I WAS GONE TONIGHT: A Requiem in Ode and Sonnet

If I Was Gone Tonight

A Requiem in Ode and Sonnet

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Title Page (as it would appear in print)

IF I WAS GONE TONIGHT

A Requiem in Ode and Sonnet

By Sebastian Raphael Windsoul Luxferian

Circulation MDCCCCXXV

“For love unseen is love that cannot die.”

Dedication

To that one heart, whoever thou art,

that would remember me not in pomp

but in the quiet fidelity of love.

Preface

This small work is not conceived as a cry of despair, nor as a demand upon the sympathies of the multitude. It is rather the private meditation of one who, pondering the frailty of life, wonders what portion of remembrance might follow his departure.

The poet seeks no monuments of stone, nor the fleeting tribute of fashionable grief; instead, he longs for that truest memorial, the steadfast recognition of a single heart that has known him as he is.

If these verses speak with solemnity, it is because they are meant to bear witness: to the quiet dignity of love unfeigned, to the Oversoul that binds all things together, and to the enduring hope that no soul is ever wholly forgotten when once it has been truly seen.

I. The Ode

O twilight hush, thou keeper of the breath,

If I were summoned to the gates of death,

Would parlors stir with whispers soft and low,

Or stars above still in their courses go?

The rites of mourning, polished, worn, and cold,

Would march in step as centuries have told;

A wreath, a prayer, the measured psalm intoned,

Yet none would seek the soul they have disowned.

I ask no marble vault, no monument,

No pompous hymn by custom’s choir spent;

But only this—that one true voice remain,

To call my hidden name through joy and pain.

For love unseen is love that cannot die,

It outlives pageant, ritual, and sigh;

It dwells where branches stir, where rivers bend,

A quiet current flowing to its end.

So let me pass, if passing is decreed,

And trust the Oversoul my flame shall feed;

Yet grant one faithful heart to hold me near,

And keep my memory living, bright, and clear.

II. The Sonnet

If I were called unto the hush of night,

Would parlors whisper soft in candle’s glow?

Would stars above still keep their courses bright,

While mortals marked my absence faint and slow?

A wreath, a word, the customary prayer,

The polished rites that custom’s hand has made;

Yet who would feel the vacancy laid bare,

And mourn the living bond that could not fade?

I crave not marble tomb nor public fame,

But one true soul who knows my hidden part;

Who speaks, unbidden, of my secret name,

And holds me still within a faithful heart.

So shall the Oversoul my spirit keep,

Where love remembers, though the flesh may sleep.

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