CANDLEMAS
THE conversation waned and waxed,
I was there: you were there:
Doubtless a few were overtaxed,
Talking was more than they could bear.
The aura of each candle-flame
Excited me, excited you;
I felt you in each diadem,
Now in the yellow, now the blue.
The conversation waxed and waned:
Question, reply; question, reply:
We, for our intercourse, disdained
Such palpable machinery.
Columnar in transparent gloom,
Symbolical, inviolate,
Those candles held the spell of some
Campanile or minaret,
Which still takes in, as it exhales,
The mood of joy or orison;
With hoarded ceremonials
Enfranchising communion—
Till every spoken word or thought,
However alien and profane,
Becomes the medium and resort
Where spirits spirits entertain;
So, idle talk’s quintessences
Gleamed in the candles’ radiance
With gathered stores of unproved bliss:
The multiplied inheritance
Of each succeeding moment.... More
Perfect in form the flames appeared;
Their arduous strivings overbore
Slight wayward wisps that swayed and veered.
They changed their contours, one and all,
Carefully, persistently,
With efforts economical
That had their will of you and me,—
For we somehow were party to
The issue of their enterprise;
Confounded in their overthrow,
Triumphant in their victories.
The alternation of each flame
—Thinning here—swelling there—
Compell’d our souls into the same
Compass,—ampler or narrower.
We knew that when those luminous spires
Hung upwards, pacified, and tranc’d,
Pois’d betwixt all and no desires,
Beyond their accidents advanc’d,—
We, their adepts, might acquiesce:
The promised consummation
Would drown our wills in its excess,
And mingle both our souls in one.
When suddenly a permanence,
—A flutter of wings before rest—
Drew down to those flame-forms: our sense
Was steeped in it, folded, caress’d....
A casual devastating gust
(The jolt, the sickening recoil!)
Our universe in chaos thrust;
And, not content to spoil
Our husbanded endeavour, threw
A mocking, flickering light,
Devour’d by shadows, on us two:
The talk became more bright.
We entered into it with zest;
Question, reply; question, reply:
And lookers-on were much impressed
By our inane garrulity.