And suddenly on the wall behind her head I see a monstrous shadow strike and spread, The lamp puffs out, a great blow crashes down. I plunge through the curtain, run through dark to the street, And hear swift steps retreat . . . The shades are drawn, the door is locked behind me. Behind the door I hear a hammer sounding. I walk in a cloud of wonder; I am glad. I mingle among the crowds; my heart is pounding; You do not guess the adventure I have had! . . . Yet you, too, all have had your dark adventures, Your sudden adventures, or strange, or sweet . . . My peril goes out from me, is blown among you. We loiter, dreaming together, along the street. V. RETROSPECT Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops, Over the clear red roofs they flow and pass. A flock of pigeons rises with blue wings flashing, Rises with whistle of wings, hovers an instant, And settles slowly again on the tarnished grass. And one old man looks down from a dusty window And sees the pigeons circling about the fountain And desires once more to walk among those trees. Lovers walk in the noontime by that fountain. Pigeons dip their beaks to drink from the water. And soon the pond must freeze. The light wind blows to his ears a sound of laughter, Young men shuffle their feet, loaf in the sunlight; A girl's laugh rings like a silver bell. But clearer than all these sounds is a sound he hears More in his secret heart than in his ears,-- A hammer's steady crescendo, like a knell. He hears the snarl of pineboards under the plane, The rhythmic saw, and then the hammer again,-- Playing with delicate strokes that sombre scale . . . And the fountain dwindles, the sunlight seems to pale. Time is a dream, he thinks, a destroying dream; It lays great cities in dust, it fills the seas; It covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls. Where was the woman he loved? Where was his youth? Where was the dream that burned his brain like fire? Even a dream grows grey at last and falls. He opened his book once more, beside the window, And read the printed words upon that page. The sunlight touched his hand; his eyes moved slowly, The quiet words enchanted time and age. 'Death is never an ending, death is a change; Death is beautiful, for death is strange; Death is one dream out of another flowing; Death is a chorded music, softly going By sweet transition from key to richer key. Death is a meeting place of sea and sea.' VI. ADELE AND DAVIS