AFTER THE VISIT

Come again to the place Where your presence was as a leaf that skims Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims The bloom on the farer's face.

Come again, with the feet That were light on the green as a thistledown ball, And those mute ministrations to one and to all Beyond a man's saying sweet.

Until then the faint scent Of the bordering flowers swam unheeded away, And I marked not the charm in the changes of day As the cloud-colours came and went.

Through the dark corridors Your walk was so soundless I did not know Your form from a phantom's of long ago Said to pass on the ancient floors,

Till you drew from the shade, And I saw the large luminous living eyes Regard me in fixed inquiring-wise As those of a soul that weighed,

Scarce consciously, The eternal question of what Life was, And why we were there, and by whose strange laws That which mattered most could not be.