Retiring to the shadow, carrying elsewhere the benediction of your sunbeams.
I sat by your bedside. I held your hand:
Once you opened your eyes: O look of recognition! O look of bestowal!
From you to me then passed the commission of the future,
From you to me that minute, from your veins to mine,
Out of the flood of passage, as you slipped away with the tide,
From your hand that touched mine, from your soul that touched mine, near, O so near—
Filling the heavens with stars—
Entered, shone upon me and out of me, the power of the spring, the seed of the rose and the wheat,
As of father to son, as of brother to brother, as of god to god!