THE LONG ABSENCE

“If you saw blue eyes that could light and darkle

With merriment or pain;

If you saw a face that was only heart — lonely

In the cities of the plain;

If you felt a kindness that was happy as the daybreak,

Patient as night,

And saw the eyes lift and — the dawn in May break,

You have seen her aright.

“Blue-cloaked archangel, rein your steed a little,

Though cities flame!

Messenger of night, though my words are brittle,

Though I know not your name,

Though your steed paw sparkles and your pinions quiver

With colors like the sea,

Tell me if you saw her, if you saw my love ever!

She is lost to me.

“That is why I walk this windy highway

And stop and hark

And peer through the moonlight — always my way!

And listen up the dark

And knuckle my forehead to remember her truly,

The very She;

And that is why I cling your rein unduly

To answer me!”

But the eyes were deep and dark, though somehow tender.

Haste was manifest

In the gauntlet, the greaves, the irid splendor

That pulsed on his breast.

He did not even gesture to the night grown holy,

But shook his rein

As his steed leapt forth; while I — turned slowly

To the cities of the plain.