Did we part when we heard this?--No! It seems that my soul remembers How I clasped and kissed you, so.... When they came they found us--dead, On the flowers our blood dyed red; Our lips together, and The dagger in my hand.
How it was I can not tell, For I know not where nor why; But I know we loved too well In some world that does not lie East or west of where we dwell, And beneath no earthly sky.
Was it in the golden ages?-- Or the iron?--that I heard,-- In the prophecy of sages,-- Haply, how had come a bird, Underneath whose wing were pages Of an unknown lover’s word.
I forget. You may remember How the earthquake shook our ships; How our city, one huge ember, Blazed within the thick eclipse: When you found me--deep December Sealed my icy eyes and lips.
I forget. No one may say That such things can not be true:-- Here a flower dies to-day, There, to-morrow, blooms anew.... Death is silent.--Tell me, pray, Why men doubt what God can do?
As to that, nothing to tell! You being all my belief, Doubt can not enter or dwell Here where your image is chief; Here where your name is a spell, Potent in joy and in grief.
Is it the glamour of spring Working in us so we seem Aye to have loved? that we cling Even to some fancy or dream, Rainbowing everything, Here in our souls, with its gleam?
See! how the synod is met There of the planets to preach us:-- Freed from the earth’s oubliette, See how the blossoms beseech us!-- Were it not well to forget Winter and death as they teach us?
Dew and a bud and a star, All,--like a beautiful thought, Over man’s wisdom how far!-- God for some purpose hath wrought.-- Could we but know why they are, And that they end not in naught!
Stars and the moon; and they roll Over our way that is white.-- Here shall we end the long stroll? Here shall I kiss you good night? Or, for a while, soul to soul, Linger and dream of delight?
_They reënter the garden. She speaks somewhat pensively_:
Myths tell of walls and cities, lyred of love, That rose to music.--Were that power my own, Had I that harp, that magic barbiton, What had I builded for our lives thereof?--
In docile shadows under bluebell skies, A home upon the poppied edge of eve, Beneath pale peaks the splendors never leave, ’Mid lemon orchards whence the egret flies.