Chapter II

We take our pack, and jog our way again
Towards the windy sunset and the night;
The inn is now behind us, out of sight,
Showing no welcome shine of windowpane,
But dark and silent standing by the way
As we go forward, seeing mile on mile
Sink out of sight--just for a little while
We rested, in the middle of the day.

Is there an end at last, and shall we reach,
By the faint glimmer of new-risen stars,
Our house at last, and find the heart-repose
Which is the ultimate desire of each
Poor traveller--ah! shall they drop the bars,
And the doors open? Dear my friend, who knows?

"TO-DAY I MISS YOU"

To-day I miss you ... "Only for to-day,
Some little matter of hours and nothing more."
That at least the worldly-wise folk say,
Who've never waited for the opening door,
The greeting look, the known step on the floor;
Who've never missed a loved one like a lover.

To-day I miss you. What to-morrow brings
Is the other side of all the stars, God knows!
Only to have you here, now evening swings
Its quiet shadow round the globe again,
And in our talk of old familiar things,
And in familiar gestures, turn of brain,
Looks, tone of voice, I may discern again
That union from which alone love grows.

We'd close the curtains;--while the world outside,
Noisily autumn, makes a sense of peace
Deeper within,--open the bookcase wide
And take a book out; then another book,
And then another.... "Here's a favourite, look!
We cannot pass him." ... Then from reading cease,
Gossip and laugh, with finger in the page,
And challenge thought with thought, and mind with mind
Each speaking freely, that we might increase
Some knowledge to which, singly, we were blind.

So goes the evening. Side by side we stand,
Dear friends and brothers, till, a sudden pause,
Or kindly, almost careless touch of hands,
Swings us to face each other, and we feel
Those deepest stirrings of the human heart
Man has no name for yet, those changeless laws
Of more than mating--that eternal part
Our body is aware of, and our brain,
Unchallenging with reason, must receive,
That sense of intimate wonder!--Now again,
The blinds are drawn; lamp, books, chairs, all retain
Familiar aspects, but, you absent, leave
The room all empty, empty all the day.

"HOW SMALL THE THREAD THAT HOLDS UP HAPPINESS"

How small the thread that holds up happiness;
But one frail life between the dark and me,
Your life, dear love--and here I seem to see
You whimsically smile, that I confess
The whole round world, with its vast energy,
Its summers, and its sunshine, and its aims,
Its splendid hopes, the faith that unquenched, flames
--All sunk into the compass of you and me.
Yes, you are right, the single leaves that fall
Mar not the summer; do I think one leaf
Denudes a forest?--We are nought at all.
Yet the bereaved small bird within the tree
May break its heart above its nest for grief
--And perhaps this must happen, love, to me.

"IN ALL THINGS GRACIOUS THERE IS A THOUGHT OF YOU"

In all things gracious there is a thought of you:
In the soft fall of April rain, the blue
Of April skies in the morning, the full moon
Of windless August nights, perfect and still,
When the white moonlight lies across the hill
Of new-cut stubble, where a little mist,
Flickering, rises. In the song of birds
My heart turns to you, emptied all of words
By loveliness, and in the poise and swing
Of flowering grasses, and in the lingering
Grave, spacious fall of evening on the earth,
When the wide, liquid spaces of the sky,
Above the dewy fields and darkening lanes,
And windless water lying quietly,
Yield up the daylight, until none remains.

I could endure--or so it seems to me--
Without your presence, a life of winter days,
Stark, grey Novembers stretching endlessly,
Where I, forgetting laughter and bright things,
Might set my face to duty; but the stir,
The loveliness, the poignancy of springs,
The growth, the rise, the universal press
Up to sensation--ah, I could not bear
To live an April through, but must take wings
Out of a world too fair for loneliness.

"THERE'S DUTY, FRIEND, TO JOG WITH ARM IN ARM"

There's duty, friend, to jog with arm in arm
Through these dark streets; there's kindliness indeed,
And there's the hope a little more to weed
Our own small patch of life which the tares harm;
There's patience for the folly of the earth;
There's pity for the poor who suffer wrong;
There's honour for the striving and the strong
--But ah, dear friend of mine, where is the mirth?
Where's the old jollity of everyday
That makes a holiday of common things
Because they all are shared by us aright,
The trivial daily work and happenings
Having a sort of fervour and delight,
And the sun rising, even, a different way?

"EVENING"

Beloved of my soul, the day is done;
The busy noises cease, the lights are low;
Gently the doors shut to behind each one
Seeking his sleep; the fading embers glow
On silent hearths; the silent ashes fall--
Ah, absent spirit, do you hear me call,
Me, sitting waiting by the fireside?

This is the hour of all the night and day,
--This is the hour when, work put aside,
And all the talking, whether grave or gay,
For pleasure or for profit, hushed and dumb,
We used to, in the days before you died,
Seek out each other's mind for rest, and say:
"Now am I home, and all is well with me;
To-day is gone, to-morrow is to come;
Here let us be."

Surely, for all the barriers of sense,
And the stark grossness of this flesh I wear,
For all the vacant distance of the skies
Between me here alone, and you, gone hence,
There must be some quick knowledge; I must hear
That dear familiar voice again, must see
Some semblance of you with my bodily eyes,
Now, now, when in the solitude I yearn
Towards your heart, my home; now when I turn
Humbly and searchingly towards that goal
That lies beyond the purchase of the world--
You again, you, dear comrade of my soul.

FINIS

Life, in its unimaginable heights,
When we may seize and apprehend the true
Soul essence, of one nature with the stars:
Rare moments when our senses are a mist
That the truth shines through:--oh, most strange and rare,
Such ecstasies as unimprisoned souls
Experience in that thin empyrean
Beyond the gross world; this we two have known
We two together. There are memories
Of such high happiness in a fence of pain
As martyrs in their fiery heart of death
Have blessed their God for; passion and holiness,
When all the body (sinew, bone, and brain)
Are like a harp, from which the spirit makes
Marvels of harmony; some sense too rare
To be called happiness, not to be named indeed
In human speech--this we have touched and known
Together, at some thrilling edge of time.

I fall away from it; the barriers close
About me; I descend from the clear heights
Into the plains and valleys of the world.
The traffic of the market-place is mine,
The heat and dust, the jostling and the noise,
The kindly challenge and the neighbour-talk,
All these may claim me, so that I forget
To lift my eyes and see the far-off peaks,
And the eternal splendour of the stars.

So be it; let the tide of men's affairs
Carry me back and forward; let the rub
Of greasy ha'pence passed from hand to hand,
In humble traffic of a bunch of herbs
Not pass me by; let me jog arm in arm,
Or cheek by jowl, the shady side o' the street,
With friends and neighbours, glad to know them there,
Imperfect, human, kind, and tolerant.

So may the years go. Yet, when the call comes,
And the world's colours fade before the eye
That turns for spiritual vision on itself;
When, from the four walls of the silent room,
The noises of the world fall back and fail
In that great silence which enrings the last
Ecstatic moment of experience,
Here on this earth--ah, then indeed I know
That I shall find you. All that lies behind
(The years of trivial experience)
Shall open and fall back from off my soul,
As falls the brown sheaf from the opening bud;
And in that poignant moment, that mere breath
Of temporal time, that aeon of the soul,
I shall reach out and know you, mix with you
As flame with flame, as ray with ray of light,
Be perfectly yourself, as you are me,
With all else fallen, gone, dispersed away
Save the pure drop of spiritual essence--Then
Let come what may, light or oblivion.

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