And with me I see how she stands
With lips high thought has weighted;
With testifying hands,
And eyes with purity mated.
Have I spoken and have I kneeled
To the prayer I worship, I wonder?—
What waits on her lips that are sealed?
God-sealed and who shall sunder!
I sob, "Oh your stay was long!
You are come, but your feet were laggard,
With mansuetude and song
For a heart your death has daggered."
And I lift wet eyes to her
Unutterable with weeping,
And beg for the loves that were,
Now passed into Heaven's keeping....
I wake and a clock tolls three—
And the night and the storm lie serried
On the testament that's she,
Closed, clasped, and forever buried.
6.
The night is shrewd with storm and sleet;
Each loose-warped casement raps or groans;
I hear the wailing woodland beat
The tempest with long blatant moans,
Like one who fears defeat.
And sitting here beyond the storm,
Alone within the lonely house,
It seems of Sleep the Fairy charm
Weaves incantations; even the mouse
That scratched has come to harm.
And in this grave light, stolen o'er
Familiar objects, grown severe,
I 'm strange—as, opening a door,
One finds one's dead self standing near,
One knew not dead before.
The old stair rings with growling gusts;
Each hearth's flue gasps a gorgon throat
That snores and sleeps; the spectral dusts,
Which yonder Shawnee war-gear coat,
Whose quiver hangs and rusts,