On a path where thrushes wake--called Celia's Way-- Time after time She led me high among the rills. And always when I pass again our chosen pine And feel upon my brow the fine Soft pressure of an unseen web and brush It from my face expectantly and climb Wide-eyed into the mountains' windy hush, Among the green and healing hills I have found Celia. For the morning fills With her and afternoon and twilight. She is always there As sweet within me as the intimate air. We are together still in the deep solitude Which is the essence of all companies, Not in its loneliness but in its brood Of presences, the dawn chanting with birds, the trees Translating unremembered memories Of the returning dead. And Celia, who has learned to die, Is well aware--and so through her am I-- That, one by one interpreted, All hopes and pains and powers Are hers and mine to try On every star, through every age. .... And, still together, on this page We quote the sun-dial of the sage: "_I number none but happy hours._" For we remember still The morning-hymn we heard: "Ye shall fulfill Your destiny and joy, Each in the other, both in that Italian boy And he in you, like flowers in a hill." She said to me one day, where a hill renewed its flowers, "How easy it would be to live and die If we would only see the ultimate Oneness of life, quicken Our hearts with it and know that they who hate And strike become by their own blow the stricken!"... "A stranger might be God," the Hindus cry. But Celia says, importunate: "Everyone must be God and you and I." VIII Almost the body leads the laggard soul; bidding it see The beauty of surrender, the tranquillity Of fusion with the earth. The body turns to dust Not only by a sudden whelming thrust, Or at the end of a corrupting calm, But oftentimes anticipates and, entering flowers and trees Upon a hillside or along the brink Of streams, encounters instances Of its eventual enterprise: Inhabits the enclosing clay, In rhapsody is caught away On a great tide Of beauty, to abide Translated through the night and day Of time and, by the anointing balm Of earth, to outgrow decay. Hark in the wind--the word of silent lips! Look where some subtle throat, that once had wakened lust, Lies clear and lovely now, a silver link Of change and peace! Hollows and willows and a river-bed, Anemones and clouds, Raindrops and tender distances Above, beneath, Inherit and bequeath Our far-begotten beauty. We are wed With many kindred who were seeming dead. Only the delicate woven shrouds Are vanished, beauty thrown aside To honor and uncover A deeper beauty--as the veil that slips Breathless away between a lover And his bride.