Chapter XV

I thought our joy benumbed for ever, like a
sun faded before it was night, on the day that
illness with its leaden arms dragged me heavily
towards its chair of weariness.

The flowers and the garden were fear or deception
to me; my eyes suffered to see the white noons
flaming, and my two hands, my hands, seemed,
before their time, too tired to hold captive our
trembling happiness.

My desires had become no more than evil weeds;
they bit at each other like thistles in the wind;
I felt my heart to be at once ice and burning
coal and of a sudden dried up and stubborn in
forgiveness.

But you said the word that gently comforts,
seeking it nowhere else than in your immense
love; and I lived with the fire of your word, and
at night warmed myself at it until the dawn of
day.

The diminished man I felt myself to be, both to
myself and all others, did not exist for you; you
gathered flowers for me from the window-sill,
and, with your faith, I believed in health.

And you brought to me, in the folds of your gown,
the keen air, the wind of the fields and forests,
and the perfumes of evening or the scents of
dawn, and, in your fresh and deep-felt kisses,
the sun.