The harsh gate jars upon its hinges still.
Gentle as the air that kisses The splendid and ignoble with one breath, Gentle as obliterating Death-- Though you be gentler yet, In days when the old, old things begin to fret The backward-looking consciousness, Will you forget? Or if remembering, will you forgive?
But there is one severer. Stung by your forgivingness so great Shall I forgive you then?-- Basest of men Would rise in bitterness and sting again. Not if you should forget Could I forget: Or if remembering, myself could I forgive?
Never! And yet such things have been, And ills as dark forgiven or forgot. But in those black hours when the heart burns hot And there's no nerve that's not Quick with the sense of things unheard, unseen-- A terrible voice that's mine yet not mine cries, "Can that Eternal Righteousness Remembering forgive?"
I came to you quietly when you were lying In perfect midnight sleep. Your dark soft hair was all about your pillow, So black upon the white. I could not see your face except the lovely Curve of the pale cheek; Your head was bent as though your stirless slumber Was sea-like heavy and deep. The wind came gently in at the wide window, Shaking the candle-light And shadows on the wall; and there was silence, Or sound but far and weak. By the bedside your daytime toys were gathered: The bright bell-ringing wheel, Dolls clad in violent yellow and vermilion, Strings of gay-coloured beads.... But you were far and far from these beside you, Entranced with other joys In fresh fields, among other children running: Your voice, I knew, must peal Purely among their high unearthly voices Over green daisied meads, While I stood watching your scarce-heaving slumber Beside your human toys---- And heard, faint from the woods all through the night, The cry of some hurt thing that moaned for light.
Frost in the air and music in the air, And the singing is sweet in the street. She wakes from a dream to a dream--O hark! The singing so faint in the dark.
The musicians come and stand at the door, A fiddler and singers three, And one with a bright lamp thrusts at the dark, And the music comes sudden--O hark!
She hears the singing as sweet as a dream And the fiddle that climbs to the sky, With head 'neath the curtain she stares out--O hark! The music so strange in the dark.