For you told me no, And bade me not to ask for the dour Communion, offering--"a better thing." So I lay on your breast for an obscure hour Feeling your fingers go
Like a rhythmic breeze Over my hair, and tracing my brows, Till I knew you not from a little wind: --I wonder now if God allows Us only one moment his keys.
If only then You could have unlocked the moon on the night, And I baptized myself in the light Of your love; we both have entered then the white Pure passion, and never again.
I wonder if only You had taken me then, how different Life would have been: should I have spent Myself in waste, and you have bent Your pride, through being lonely?
The little river twittering in the twilight, The wan, wondering look of the pale sky, This is almost bliss.
And everything shut up and gone to sleep, All the troubles and anxieties and pain Gone under the twilight.
Only the twilight now, and the soft "Sh!" of the river That will last for ever.
And at last I know my love for you is here, I can see it all, it is whole like the twilight, It is large, so large, I could not see it before Because of the little lights and flickers and interruptions, Troubles, anxieties and pains.
You are the call and I am the answer, You are the wish, and I the fulfilment, You are the night, and I the day. What else--it is perfect enough, It is perfectly complete, You and I, What more----? Strange, how we suffer in spite of this!
I felt the lurch and halt of her heart Next my breast, where my own heart was beating; And I laughed to feel it plunge and bound, And strange in my blood-swept ears was the sound Of the words I kept repeating, Repeating with tightened arms, and the hot blood's blindfold art.
Her breath flew warm against my neck, Warm as a flame in the close night air; And the sense of her clinging flesh was sweet Where her arms and my neck's blood-surge could meet. Holding her thus, did I care That the black night hid her from me, blotted out every speck?
I leaned me forward to find her lips, And claim her utterly in a kiss, When the lightning flew across her face, And I saw her for the flaring space Of a second, afraid of the clips Of my arms, inert with dread, wilted in fear of my kiss.
A moment, like a wavering spark, Her face lay there before my breast, Pale love lost in a snow of fear, And guarded by a glittering tear, And lips apart with dumb cries; A moment, and she was taken again in the merciful dark.