"Why," you ask me, dearest, "why
Did we leave that place—
Is it such a thing to die?"
Ponder for a space:
What if love must lose to gain,
Find eternal peace in pain?
"But I want the Ever-Now!"
Dear, do you not know
They who drive the patient plough
And the furrows sow,
Own the sinews of the strong—
Reap the harvest with a song?
"Let the scattered fragments be
Gathered from the feast,
Nothing lost"; thus speaketh He
Who is Love's High Priest,
And He knows who from a cross
Pledged return for every loss.
Thus, my Maid of long ago,
Here within the field
Let me tell what you would know:
How I came to yield
To your eyes, your lips, your hair,
When the guests were gathered there
In the room that day we met,
Found amid the talk
Light of ancient suns which set
Æons ere the chalk
Cliffs of Dover gleamed upon
Merchant-prows from Babylon.
Love and Life eternal are,
Fill unfathomed space,
Bind with rapture star to star,
Gleam from every face,
Soar with angels, plunge to hell:
Lucifer and Israfel!
So above the choric spheres,
At the knees of God
You and I beyond the years
Kissed, then clove the clod
With our spirit's sundered flame;
Till amid the talk your name
Fell seraphic, smote me through
With unearthly pain:
I was I and you were you—
Met on earth again,
Bound to live and bound to love
By that oath we made above!
AFTER THE FEAST