Well I remember it, that night in May-- The sleep, the hushed awakenings, full of dread, From haunted meres of horror and disdain, From dreams of terror--and the mad return Into the bounteous pity of two arms, The comfort and the kindness. O the return Forever and forever, wild and sad, Seraphic with all weariness and pain, Insatiate with all love--as if to slake In one abandon all the desperate drought Of the years to come! Upon my own I felt The wet, salt quivering of your lips, and all Your being fold me in, urgent to save, Urgent to hide the approaching loneliness, Our bitter portion; prismed in tears, the dusk Swam ’round with dizzy color: the nightingales, Beauty’s disdain above the war of things, Beauty’s high pity from her virgin heights, Our meeting hearts pierced with a single pang-- Like a bright sword of sorrow through the breast Driven, and like a bruising sword withdrawn. The sun arose-- Fled were the nightingales, the love, the joy-- And with him rose at last the relentless fear, Like a harsh face never to be pushed back, Between your face and mine; till all the terror, The loneliness, the irrevocable fate, In the dim twilight hugged me, and a cry, Up from _my_ self to _your_ self, would have rent My hesitant lips, in the great need, to you Turned for the last compassion.... But you slept. At peace you lay. Over you in the dawn I leaned, and knew you truly what you were. Then a great love Triumphing over sorrow, like the light Clearing the west when sunset’s wrath has waned Before the risen stars--a mystery--welled Up through me radiant, helpless where you lay In the calm pose of sleep: and above Time, Our little passion, and the circumstance Of temporal tumult, self to self we met; And sundered reverent.... Faintest breath of flowers Stirred in the twilight fragrantly, and there The pathos of our days together filled me With a new wonder--flooding on me came A host of memories, as to one long dead, Lifted beyond his living; till all seemed Marvellous and immortal and benign. And now The hour was come. Beside your quiet breast I begged forgiveness for my many sins Done to you, though unwitting--all the hurt-- In a swift prayer, and even for this last-- To wake you to your sorrow. And your lips Forgave me--yes, in the silence. So I touched Your lids with kisses. And you woke, and wept. But brave to the end with a heart-breaking bravery-- Gallant and gracious, dear with sacred eyes, You let me go. With a half-kiss we parted. II