Chapter I

This hour has shut us like a tent
From all but night; we two, alone,
So close, so poignantly alert, have grown,
That trivial speech, from silence rent,
Breaks off--a useless instrument.

For all the opening world is ours,
And you, tho scarce a woman yet,
Your eyes with feasts of lights and vintage set,
Hold all the dewy wealth of flowers,
And gold of Babylonian towers.

Our lives will alter if we move--
It were so easy now to rise
And tell my unimpassioned soul it lies--
And claim youth's heritage of love,
Let bald life prove what it may prove!

It were so easy to conceive
Your lack my lack would compensate--
And by one stroke undo the knot of fate;
It were so easy to believe
The lies that such a thing could weave!

Or shall I stumble through the night
Biting my lips to hold the tears
Because your incommunicable years
Must spend their summer of delight
Without my reach--beyond my sight?

The house is still; the midnight seems
Inscrutable--no answer there.
Oh God!--to break this tension of despair.
Between us the calm lamplight streams--
"Good night!" and "Pleasant dreams!"--yes--dreams.