Shades

SHALL I tell you, then, how it is?-- There came a cloven gleam Like a tongue of darkened flame To flicker in me.

And so I seem To have you still the same In one world with me.

In the flicker of a flower, In a worm that is blind, yet strives, In a mouse that pauses to listen

Glimmers our Shadow; yet it deprives Them none of their glisten.

In every shaken morsel I see our shadow tremble As if it rippled from out of us hand in hand.

As if it were part and parcel, One shadow, and we need not dissemble Our darkness: do you understand?

For I have told you plainly how it is.

BREAD UPON THE WATERS.

SO you are lost to me! Ah you, you ear of corn straight lying, What food is this for the darkly flying Fowls of the Afterwards!

White bread afloat on the waters, Cast out by the hand that scatters Food untowards,

Will you come back when the tide turns? After many days? My heart yearns To know.

Will you return after many days To say your say as a traveller says, More marvel than woe?

Drift then, for the sightless birds And the fish in shadow-waved herds To approach you.

Drift then, bread cast out; Drift, lest I fall in doubt, And reproach you.

For you are lost to me!