The Passing Of Sleep

When my most constant comforter and stay, To rest my tired heart which so long has bled, Seats herself on the left side of my bed And talks to me in the old dear tranquil way; White with great awe and yearning low I say: “Whence comest thou now, O happy soul so calm?” A little bough of palm, And a laurel bough, she draws from her soft breast, And says: “Upon this quest I left the Paradise garden and Heavenly lands: Only to comfort thee and touch thy hands.” Humbly I thank her in gesture and in word; And then I ask: “O heavenly sweet and wise, How knowest thou my state?” and she replies: “The moan of thy insatiate heart is heard, It beats through infinite spaces like a bird, Flutters through Heaven, and troubles all my peace. Nay, griev’st thou that I cease To make one in this miserable strife, And have been rapt into a larger life? Thou wouldst be happy if thou loved’st me true, As in all looks and words thou seem’st to do.”

“I wanted so to ask,” I answer then, “What was the meaning of those two green boughs?” And she: “The one to which thy love allows All honour answers thee by thine own pen. The palm is victory; I was a child still when, Vanquishing the world and self on difficult height, I proved to both my right, Through mercy of that Lord Who gave me force. Do thou too have recourse To Him, if near to fall; So we may both be with Him after all.” “Is this the golden knot, this the blond head,” I ask, “which still constrain my heart? Are these The lovely eyes that were my sun?” “Nay, please, Be not blind with the blind,” she, faintly red, “Nor think their thoughts. For dust, ay me, long dead Is what thou seest, I an immortal thing. This semblance I do bring To comfort thee: but thou some day shalt see How lovelier she can be And dearer even, who, once by love made bold, To save thy soul and hers seemed dumb and cold.”

I answer: “I mourn only my hard fate, Who here remain in torture of black night, As certain always of thy heavenward flight, As of a thing I see within my gate. For how should Nature’s God and Nature weight A girl’s young heart with such stupendous dower, If the Eternal Power Had not been set on seeing her reach that goal? A rarest soul, Who lived among us with that lofty look, And then such sudden flight to Heaven took! But I, what should I do but ever weep, Who without thee am nothing? Ah, I would That I had died a tiny child who could Have passed without a love-wound to his sleep!” And she: “Why dost thou stir thy soul so deep? Better it were to raise from earth thy wings; And mortal things, And woes of thy sweet phantom-earnest tales, Weigh in well balanced scales, And follow me, if that thou lov’st me so; Gathering these boughs forever where they grow!”

I weep; and she my tears With her own hands does stay: and then she sighs Softly, and then she cries Remonstrance that would make the stones to weep: And after that she goes away, with Sleep.

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