The Secret Way

PART I

Stark on the window’s early grey
Lined out in squares by casement bars,
She saw her lily lift to take
The sinking stars.

Within the room’s delaying dark
Intimate things lay dim and still
With all their day-time friendliness
Gone false and chill.

Her hand upon the coverlet,
Her face low in the linen’s cleft,
They were as wan as water-flowers
By light bereft.

And never was bloom brought to her couch
But shed the odour of a sigh
Because she was as white as they,
And they must die.

“O Pale, lit deep within the dark
Of your young eyes, a stifled light
Leaps thin and keen as melody
And leavens night.

“It is a light that did not burn
When you were gay at mart and fair;
O Pale, what is that starry fire,
Fed unaware?”

Then softly she: “I may not tell
What other eyes behold in mine;
But I have melted night and day
In some wild wine.