Stark on the window’s early grey
Lined out in squares by casement bars,
She saw her lily lift to take
The sinking stars.
Within the room’s delaying dark
Intimate things lay dim and still
With all their day-time friendliness
Gone false and chill.
Her hand upon the coverlet,
Her face low in the linen’s cleft,
They were as wan as water-flowers
By light bereft.
And never was bloom brought to her couch
But shed the odour of a sigh
Because she was as white as they,
And they must die.
“O Pale, lit deep within the dark
Of your young eyes, a stifled light
Leaps thin and keen as melody
And leavens night.
“It is a light that did not burn
When you were gay at mart and fair;
O Pale, what is that starry fire,
Fed unaware?”
Then softly she: “I may not tell
What other eyes behold in mine;
But I have melted night and day
In some wild wine.
“I may not read the graven cup
Exhaustless as a brimming bell
Distilling silver; but I drank
And all is well.
“One morn like this, bitter still,
I waited for the early stir
Of those who slept the while I watched
What muffled wonders were.
“I saw my lily on the sill;
I saw my mirror on the wall
Take light that was not; and I saw
My spectral taper tall.
“Why I had known these quiet things
Since I could speak. Yet suddenly
They all touched hands and in one breath
They spoke to me.
“I may not tell you what they said.
The strange part is that I must lie
And never tell you what we say——
These things and I.
“I only know that common things
Bear sudden little spirits set
Free by the rose of dawn and by
Night’s violet.
“I only know that when I hear
Clear tone, the haunted echoes bear
Legions of little winged feet
On printless air.
“And when warm colour weds my look
A word is uttered tremblingly,
With meaning fall—but I know not
What it may be.
“I only know that now I find
Abiding beauty everywhere;
Or if it bide not, that it fades
Is still more fair.
I long to question those I love
And yet I know not what to say;
I am alone as one upon
Some secret way.
“My words are barren of my bliss;
The strange part is that I must lie
And never tell you what we say—
These things and I.
“So will it be when I am not.
A little more perhaps to tell;
Yet then as now I may not say
What I know well.”
She died when all the east was red.
And we are they who know her fate
Because we love the way of life
That she had found too late.