AT THE WORD “FAREWELL”

She looked like a bird from a cloud

On the clammy lawn,

Moving alone, bare-browed

In the dim of dawn.

The candles alight in the room

For my parting meal

Made all things withoutdoors loom

Strange, ghostly, unreal.

The hour itself was a ghost,

And it seemed to me then

As of chances the chance furthermost

I should see her again.

I beheld not where all was so fleet

That a Plan of the past

Which had ruled us from birthtime to meet

Was in working at last:

No prelude did I there perceive

To a drama at all,

Or foreshadow what fortune might weave

From beginnings so small;

But I rose as if quicked by a spur

I was bound to obey,

And stepped through the casement to her

Still alone in the gray.

“I am leaving you... Farewell!” I said,

As I followed her on

By an alley bare boughs overspread;

“I soon must be gone!”

Even then the scale might have been turned

Against love by a feather,

- But crimson one cheek of hers burned

When we came in together.