V
For them there is no joy in blossomed trees.
And with what eye-shut ease
We leave them, at the last, for company,
The Tree,
Whose two stark boughs no springtime yet unfurled,
Ever, since time began;
Nor bloom so strange to see!—
Behold, the Man,
With His two arms outstretched to fold the world.
O, do you remember?—How it came to be?
Far, golden windows gazing from the shore;
Golden ebb of daylight; heart could hold no more:
Belovèd and Belovèd, and the sea.
Westward the sun,—low, slow and golden;
Eastward the moon climbed, honey-pale.
O do you remember? while our eyes were holden,
Close, close upon us,—the Golden Sail?
Wind-swift she came,—thing of living flame,
Sea-breathing Glory, to make the heart afraid!
The ripples, fold on fold
Of coiling gold,
Trailing a thousand ways
Her golden maze,
Rocked in a golden tumult, every one,
The gondolas, the ships ..
Westward she made …..
A portent from the sky,—gone by, gone by,
To golden, far eclipse; …
Into the Sun.
Behold, a mystery
That shook to golden throbbing all the sea.
Oh, and what needed one more wonder be
For thee and me, Belovèd? thee and me?