“FRIENDS VANISH AT MY FACE”
Friends vanish at my face; yet, as they fly,
Swoll’n with the sombre mood of conjured schism,
I hear thee say thou whom the holy chrism
Has sealed as mine eternal—“Dear, do I
Outweigh the scales; if this one form be nigh,
Shall that suffice thee in this dark abysm?”
Ah, think, Belov’d! did some great cataclysm
Fierce-swoop upon to enshroud the midnight sky,
Did gulf the multitudinous stars but one,
Some Betelgeuse, in beauty-flame of love
Gleaming and twinkling in the lowly mart
Of tremulous darkness, how ’twould swell upon
The vaults of Heaven; how rare so poised above!
Even so in lone magnificence thou art!