We do not look at each other, we hide Our daunted eyes. White earth, and ruins, ourselves, and nothing beside. It all belies Our existence; we wait, and are still denied. We are folded together, men and the snowy ground Into nullity. There is silence, only the silence, never a sound Nor a verity To assist us; disastrously silence-bound! THE ATTACK WHEN we came out of the wood Was a great light! The night uprisen stood In white. I wondered, I looked around It was so fair. The bright Stubble upon the ground Shone white Like any field of snow; Yet warm the chase Of faint night-breaths did go Across my face! White-bodied and warm the night was, Sweet-scented to hold in my throat. White and alight the night was. A pale stroke smote The pulse through the whole bland being Which was This and me; A pulse that still went fleeing, Yet did not flee. After the terrible rage, the death, This wonder stood glistening? All shapes of wonder, with suspended breath, Arrested listening In ecstatic reverie. The whole, white Night!-- With wonder, every black tree Blossomed outright. I saw the transfiguration And the present Host. Transubstantiation Of the Luminous Ghost. OBSEQUIAL ODE SURELY you've trodden straight To the very door! Surely you took your fate Faultlessly. Now it's too late To say more. It is evident you were right, That man has a course to go A voyage to sail beyond the charted seas. You have passed from out of sight And my questions blow Back from the straight horizon that ends all one sees. Now like a vessel in port You unlade your riches unto death, And glad are the eager dead to receive you there. Let the dead sort Your cargo out, breath from breath Let them disencumber your bounty, let them all share. I imagine dead hands are brighter, Their fingers in sunset shine With jewels of passion once broken through you as a prism Breaks light into jewels; and dead breasts whiter For your wrath; and yes, I opine They anoint their brows with your blood, as a perfect chrism. On your body, the beaten anvil, Was hammered out That moon-like sword the ascendant dead unsheathe Against us; sword that no man will Put to rout; Sword that severs the question from us who breathe. Surely you've trodden straight To the very door. You have surely achieved your fate; And the perfect dead are elate To have won once more. Now to the dead you are giving Your last allegiance. But what of us who are living And fearful yet of believing In your pitiless legions. SHADES SHALL I tell you, then, how it is?-- There came a cloven gleam Like a tongue of darkened flame To flicker in me. And so I seem To have you still the same In one world with me. In the flicker of a flower, In a worm that is blind, yet strives, In a mouse that pauses to listen Glimmers our Shadow; yet it deprives Them none of their glisten.