| |
I CELIA was laughing. Hopefully I said: | |
| “How shall this beauty that we share, | |
| This love, remain aware | |
| Beyond our happy breathing of the air? | |
| How shall it be fulfilled and perfected? | 5 |
| If you were dead, | |
| How then should I be comforted?” | |
| But Celia knew instead: | |
| “He who takes comfort here, shall find it there.” | |
| A halo gathered round her hair. | 10 |
| I looked and saw her wisdom bare | |
| The living bosom of the countless dead … | |
| And there | |
| I laid my head. | |
| |
| Again, when Celia laughed, I doubted her and said: | 15 |
| “Life must be led | |
| In many ways more difficult to see | |
| Than this immediate way | |
| For you and me. | |
| We stand together on our lake’s edge, and the mystery | 20 |
| Of love has made us one, as day is made of night and night of day. | |
| Conscious of one identity | |
| Within each other, we can say, | |
| ‘I love you, all that you are.’ | |
| We are uplifted till we touch a star. | 25 |
| We know that overhead | |
| Is nothing more austere, more starry, or more deep to understand | |
| Than is our union, human hand in hand … | |
| But over our lake come strangers … a crowded launch, a lonely sailing boy. | |
| A mile away a train bends by. In every car | 30 |
| Strangers are travelling, each with particular | |
| And unkind preference like ours, with privacy | |
| Of understanding, with especial joy | |
| Like ours. Celia, Celia, why should there be | |
| Distrust between ourselves and them, disunity? | 35 |
| How careful we have been | |
| To trim this little circle that we tread, | |
| To set a bar | |
| To strangers and forbid them! Are they not as we, | |
| Our very likeness and our nearest kin? | 40 |
| How can we shut them out and let stars in?” | |
| |
| She looked along the lake. And when I heard her speak, | |
| The sun fell on the boy’s white sail and on her cheek. | |
| “I touch them all through you,” she said. “I cannot know them now | |
| Deeply and truly as my very own, except through you, | 45 |
| Except through one or two | |
| Interpreters. | |
| But not a moment stirs | |
| Here between us, binding and interweaving us, | |
| That does not bind these others to our care.” | 50 |
| |
| The sunlight fell in glory on her hair; | |
| And then said Celia, laughing, when I held her near: | |
| “They who take comfort there, shall find it here.” | |
| |
| So when the sun stood sharp that day | |
| Behind the shadowy firs, | 55 |
| This poem came to me to say, | |
| My word and hers. | |
| “Record it all,” said Celia, “more than merely this, | |
| More than the shine of sunset on our heads, more than a kiss, | |
| More than our rapt agreement and delight | 60 |
| Watching the mountain mingle with the night … | |
| Tell that the love of two incurs | |
| The love of multitudes, makes way | |
| And welcome for them, as a solitary star | |
| Brings on the great array. | 65 |
| Go make a calendar,” | |
| She said, “immortalize this day.” | |
| |
II “A stranger might be God,” the Hindus cry. | |
| But Celia says, importunate: | |
| “The stranger must be God, and you and I.” | 70 |
| |
III Once in a smoking-car I saw a scene | |
| That made my blood stand still. | |
| The sun was smouldering in a great ravine, | |
| And I, with elbow on the window-sill, | |
| Was watching the dim ember of the west, | 75 |
| When hushed and low, but poignant as a bell | |
| For fire, there came a moan: the voice of one in hell. | |
| |
| Across the car were two young men, | |
| French by their look, and brothers, | |
| Unhappy men who had been happy boys, | 80 |
| And one was moaning on the other’s breast. | |
| His face was hid away. I could not tell | |
| What words he said, half English and half French. I only knew | |
| Both men were suffering, not one but two. | |
| And then that face came into view, | 85 |
| Gaunt and unshaved, with shadows and wild eyes, | |
| A face of madness and of desolation. And his cries, | |
| For all his mate could do, | |
| Rang out, a shrill unearthly noise, | |
| And tears ran down the stubble of his cheek. | 90 |
| |
| The other face was younger, clean and sad. | |
| With the manful, stricken beauty of a lad | |
| Who had intended always to be glad. | |
| The touch of his compassion, like a mother’s, | |
| Guarded the madman, soothed him and caressed. | 95 |
| And then I heard him speak: | |
| “Mon frère, mon frère! | |
| Calme-toi! Right here’s your place.” | |
| And, opening his coat, he pressed | |
| Upon his heart the poor wet face | 100 |
| And smoothed the tangled hair. | |
| |
| After a peaceful moment there | |
| The maniac screamed, struck out and fell | |
| Across his brother’s arm. Love could not quell | |
| His fury. Wrists together high in air | 105 |
| He rose, and with a yell | |
| Brought down his handcuffs toward the upturned face … | |
| Then paused, then knelt—and then that sound, that moan, | |
| Of one forsaken and alone: | |
| “Seigneur!—le créateur du ciel et de la terre!— | 110 |
| Forgotten me, forgotten me!” | |
| And then the voice grew weak, | |
| The brother leaned to ease the huddled body. But a shriek | |
| Repulsed him: “Non! Détache-moi! I don’t care | |
| For you. Non! Tu es l’homme qui m’a trahi! | 115 |
| Non! Tu n’es pas mon frère!” | |
| |
| But as often as that mind would fill | |
| With the great anguish and the rush of hate, | |
| The boy, his young eyes older, older, | |
| Would curve his shoulder | 120 |
| To the other’s pain, and bind | |
| Their hearts again, and say: “Oh, wait! | |
| You’ll know me better by and by. | |
| Mon pauvre petit, be still— | |
| Right here’s your place.” | 125 |
| |
| The seeing gleam, the blinded stare, | |
| The cry: | |
| “Non, tu n’es pas mon frère!” | |
| |
| I saw myself, myself, as blind | |
| As he. For something smothers | 130 |
| My reason. And I do not know my brothers … | |
| But every day declare: | |
| “Non, tu n’es pas mon frère!” | |
| |
IV I know a fellow in a steel-mill who, intent | |
| Upon his labors and his happiness, had meant | 135 |
| In his own wisdom to be blest, | |
| Had made his own unaided way | |
| To schooling, opportunity, | |
| Success. And then he loved and married. And his bride, | |
| After a brief year, died. | 140 |
| I went to him, to see | |
| If I might comfort him. The comfort came to me. | |
| |
| “David,” I said, “under the temporary ache | |
| There is unwonted nearness with the dead.” | |
| I felt his two hands take | 145 |
| The sentence from me with a grip | |
| Forged in the mills. He told me that his tears were shed | |
| Before her breath went. After that, instead | |
| Of grief, she came herself. He felt her slip | |
| Into his being like a miracle, her lip | 150 |
| Whispering on his, to slake | |
| His need of her. “And in the night I wake | |
| With wonder and I find my bride | |
| And her embrace there in our bed, | |
| Within my very being!—not outside. | 155 |
| |
| “We have each other more, much more,” | |
| He said, “now than before. | |
| This very moment while I shake | |
| Your hand, my friend, | |
| She welcomes you as well as I, | 160 |
| And laughs with me because I cried | |
| For her…. People would think me crazy if I told. | |
| But something in what you said made me bold | |
| To let you meet my bride!” | |
| |
| It was not madness. David’s eye | 165 |
| Was clear and open-seeing. | |
| His life | |
| Had seen in his young wife, | |
| As mine had seen when Celia died, | |
| The secret of God’s being. | 170 |
| |
V Celia, perhaps the few | |
| Whom I shall tell of you | |
| Will see with me your beauty who are dead, | |
| Will hear with me your voice and what it said! | |
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