X. FELLOWSHIP.

At last we reached the pointed firs

And rested for a little while;

The light of home was in her smile

And my cold hand grew warm as her's.

Behind, across the level snow,

We saw the half-moon touch the hill

Where we had felt the sunset; still

Our feet had many miles to go.

And now, new little stars were born

In the dark hollows of the sky:—

Perhaps ( she said ) lest we should die

Of weariness before the morn.

Once, when the year stood still at June,

At even we had tarried there

Till Dusk came in — her noiseless hair

Trailing along a pathway strewn

With broken cones and year-old things,

But now, tonight, it seemed that She

Therein abode continually,

With weighted feet and folded wings,

And so we lingered not for dawn

To mark the edges of out path;

But with such home a blind man hath

At midnight, we went groping on.

— I do not know how many firs

We stumbled past in that still wood:

Only I know that once we stood

Together there — my lips on her's.

Between the midnight and the dawn

We came out on the farther side;

— What if the wood was dark and wide?

Its shadows now here far withdrawn,

And O the white stars in the sky!

And O the glitter of the snow!—

Henceforth we know our feet should know

Fair ways to travel — she and I —

For One — Whose shadow is the Night —

Unwound them where the Great Bear swung

And wide across the darkness flung

The ribbons of the Northern Light.