IRREVOCABLE

What you have done may never be undone

By day or night,

What I have seen may never be unseen

In my sad sight.

The days swing on, the sun glows and is gone,

From span to span;

The tides sweep scornfully the shore, as when

The tides began.

What we have known is but a bitter pledge

Of Ignorance,

The human tribute to an ageless dream,

A timeless trance.

Through what great cycles hath this circumstance

Swept on and on,

Known not by thee or me, till it should come,

A vision wan,

To our two lives, and yours would seem to me

The hand that kills,

Though you have wept to strike, and but have cried,

“The mad Fate wills!”

You could not, if you would, give what had been

Peace, not distress;

Some warping cords of destiny had held

You in duress.

Nay, not the Fates, look higher; is God blind?

Doth He not well?

Our eyes see but a little space behind,

If it befell,

That they saw but a little space before,

Shall we then say,

Unkind is the Eternal, if He knew

This from alway,

And called us into being but to give

To mother Earth

Two blasted lives, to make the watered land

A place of dearth?

The life that feeds upon itself is mad —

Is it not thus?

Have I not held but one poor broken reed

For both of us?

Keep but your place and simply meet

The needs of life;

Mine is the sorrow, mine the prayerless pain:

The world is rife

With spectres seen and spectres all unseen

By human eyes,

Who stand upon the threshold, at the gates,

Of Paradise.

Well do they who have felt the spectres’ hands

Upon their hearts,

And have not fled, but with firm faith have borne

Their brothers’ parts,

Upheld the weary head, or fanned the brow

Of some sick soul,

Pointed the way for tired pilgrim eyes

To their far goal.

So let it be with us: perchance will come

In after days,

The benison of happiness for us

Always, always.