FRIENDS

There's one comes often as the sun

And fills my room with morning; comes with step

Light as a youth's that joy has hurried home.

If he should greet my cheek, so might a wind

Blow roses till they touch, silk leaf to leaf,

And on their beauty leave no deeper dye;

But with that touch an old world is untombed,

Gay, festal-gowned; and two with nuptial eyes

Walk arm-locked there, flinging the curls of Greece

From proud, smooth brows. As trapped between two throbs,

Their laughter dies in silent passion's kiss;

And I from glow of ancient dust look up

To meet the untroubled eyes of my friend's bride,

Her pretty, depthless eyes that smile and smile

Possessingly, not grudging alien me

A footstool place about her sceptred love.

And I, too, from imperial largess, smile.

Another comes more rarely than new moon,

And always with a flower,— one; pours tea

Like an old picture softly made alive,

Sings me a ballad that once teased the ears

Of golden Bess, and reads the book I love.

If he must journey, first he comes to lay

Knight-service on my hand; no passion then

More swift than when a last cool petal falls

To faded summer grass; but as he goes

I see a girl deep in a forest lane,

A narrow lane dark-roofed with locking firs;

And there are purple foxgloves shoulder high,

And round the girl's knees Canterbury bells.

Upon the air is scent of wounded trees,

As though a storm had passed there, and great owls

Ruffle a shade unloved of birds that sing.

But at the green lane's end, far down

A bit of heart-shaped sun tells where the road

Lies wide and open; on the sun the still

Dark shadow of a steed: and by the girl

One who shall ride,— unvisored now, and pale.

“And when I come,” he says, to me who know

He'll come that way no more; then hear my door

Closed softly on a sob ten centuries old.

And there is one whom never sun or moon

Brings to my gate; but when amid a throng

That fills some worldly room I see him pass.

The light about me is of regions where

Cold peaks are blue against a colder sky,

And in the dusk-line where begins the Doubt

Men call the Known, we stand in wingless pause,

Unheavened weariness in untaught feet,

And in our hearts sad longing for the fire

Of stars from whence we came. “The earth,” he says,

And warms in his my hand amazed to lie

In strange, near comfort,— blossom of first pain.

Then low we dip into the clinging night

That is the Lethe of God-memories;

Stumble and sink in chains of time and sense

Tangle in treacheries of a weed-hung globe,

And tread the dun, dim verges of defeat

Till spirit chafes to vision, and we learn

What morning is, and where the way of love.

In that gold dawn we part, knowing at last

That earth can not divide us. With a smile

He goes, and Fate leads not but runs before

Like an indulgèd child. That smile again

I sometimes see across the world — a room.