So it passed This week with you--you served me ancient wine. We sat across a table where you cast A cloth of chikku, or we went to dine There in the stately room of heavy plate. Or tiring of the rooms, the day's decline Beheld us by the river to await The evening planet, where in elfin mood You whistled like the robin to its mate, And won its answering call. Then through the wood We wandered back in silence hand in hand, And reached the sacred portal with our blood Running so swift no ripples stirred the sand To figures of reflection. Once again Within your room of books, upon the stand The reading lights are brought to us, and then You read to me from Plato, and my heart Breathes like a bird at rest; the world of men, Strife, hate, are all forgotten in this art Of life made perfect. Or when weariness Comes over us, you dim the lamp and start The blue light back of Dante's bust to bless Our twilight with its beauty. So the time Passes too quickly--our poor souls possess Beauty and love a moment--and our rhyme Which captures it, creates the illusion love Has permanence, when even at its prime Decay has taken it from the light above, Or darkness underneath. I must recur To our first sleep and all the bliss thereof. How did you first come to me, how confer On me your beauty? That first night it was The blue light back of Dante, but a blur Of golden light our spirits, when you pass Your hand across my brow, our souls go out To meet each other, leave as wilted grass Our emptied bodies. Then we grow devout, And kneel and pray together for the gift Of love from heaven, and to banish doubt Of change or faithlessness. Then with a swift Arising from the prayer you disappear. I sleep meanwhile, you come again and lift My head against your bosom, bringing near A purple robe for me, and say, "Wear this, And to your chamber go." And thus I hear, And leave you; on my couch, where calm for bliss I wait for you and listen, hear your feet Whisper their secret to the tapestries Of your ecstatic coming--O my sweet! I touched your silken gown, where underneath Your glowing flesh was dreaming, made complete My rapture by upgathering, quick of breath, Your golden ringlets loosened--and at last Hold you in love's embrace--would it were Death!... For soon 'twixt love and sleep the night was past, And dawn cob-webbed the chamber. Then I heard One faintest note and all was still--the vast Spherule of heaven was pecked at by a bird As it were to break the sky's shell, let the light Of morning flood the fragments scattered, stirred By breezes of the dawn with passing night.