"David," I said, "under the temporary ache There is unwonted nearness with the dead." I felt his two hands take The sentence from me with a grip Forged in the mills. He told me that his tears were shed Before her breath went. After that, instead Of grief, she came herself. He felt her slip Into his being like a miracle, her lip Whispering on his, to slake His need of her.--"And in the night I wake With wonder and I find my bride And her embrace there in our bed, Within my very being, not outside! .... We have each other more, much more," He said, "now than before. This very moment while I shake Your hand, my friend, Not only I, But she is touching you--and laughs with me because I cried For her.... People would think me crazy if I told. But something in what you said made me bold To let you meet my bride!" It was not madness. David's eye Was clear and open-seeing. His life Had faced in death and understood in his young wife, As I when Celia died, The secret of God's being. VII Among good citizens, I praise Again a woman whom I knew and know, A citizen whom I have seen Most heartily, most patiently Making God's mind, A citizen who, dead, Yet shines across her white-remembered ways As the nearness of a light across the snow.... My Celia, mystical, serene, Laughing and kind. And still I hear among New Hampshire trees Her happy speech: "Democracy is beauty's inmost reach." And still her voice announces plain The mystic gain Of friends from adversaries and of peace from pain: Beauty's control Of every soul Surrendering in victory. .... Well I recall how she explained to me With sunlight on her head When last we looked, as many times before, Over those hundred foothills rolling like the sea. "Where mountains are, door after door Unlocks within me, opens wide And leaves no difference in my heart," she said, "From anything outside." Not only Celia, speaking, taught me these The tenets of her beauty; but her life was such That I believed as by a palpable touch That heals and tends. Not better nor more learned nor more wise In many ways than others of my friends, Celia was happier. Their excellencies and their destinies Became, contributing, a part of her, Anointed her awhile among all men An eminent citizen, A generous arbiter. Not less bereaved than others of my friends, Celia was lovelier. And now, though something of her dies, Her heart of love assembles and transcends Laws, letters, personalities, Beginnings, passages and ends. Often I start and look beside me for the stir Of her sweet presence come again. I have cried out to her, So vivid has begun Some dear-remembered sentence in her voice. If a deluded wakeful thrush, Seeing a light in a window, sings to the sun, Yet he shall soon rejoice; When the great dawn of day Opens a thousand windows into one.