| WHEN you were there, and you, and you, | |
| Happiness crowned the night; I too, | |
| Laughing and looking, one of all, | |
| I watched the quivering lamplight fall | |
| On plate and flowers and pouring tea | 5 |
| And cup and cloth; and they and we | |
| Flung all the dancing moments by | |
| With jest and glitter. Lip and eye | |
| Flashed on the glory, shone and cried, | |
| Improvident, unmemoried; | 10 |
| And fitfully and like a flame | |
| The light of laughter went and came. | |
| Proud in their careless transience moved | |
| The changing faces that I loved. | |
| |
| Till suddenly, and otherwhence, | 15 |
| I looked upon your innocence. | |
| For lifted clear and still and strange | |
| From the dark woven flow of change | |
| Under a vast and starless sky | |
| I saw the immortal moment lie. | 20 |
| One Instant I, an instant, knew | |
| As God knows all. And it and you | |
| I, above Time, oh, blind! could see | |
| In witless immortality. | |
| |
| I saw the marble cup; the tea, | 25 |
| Hung on the air, an amber stream; | |
| I saw the fire’s unglittering gleam, | |
| The painted flame, the frozen smoke. | |
| No more the flooding lamplight broke | |
| On flying eyes and lips and hair; | 30 |
| But lay, but slept unbroken there, | |
| On stiller flesh, and body breathless, | |
| And lips and laughter stayed and deathless, | |
| And words on which no silence grew. | |
| Light was more alive than you. | 35 |
| |
| For suddenly, and otherwhence, | |
| I looked on your magnificence. | |
| I saw the stillness and the light, | |
| And you, august, immortal, white, | |
| Holy and strange; and every glint | 40 |
| Posture and jest and thought and tint | |
| Freed from the mask of transiency, | |
| Triumphant in eternity, | |
| Immote, immortal. | |
| |
| Dazed at length | 45 |
| Human eyes grew, mortal strength | |
| Wearied; and Time began to creep. | |
| Change closed about me like a sleep. | |
| Light glinted on the eyes I loved. | |
| The cup was filled. The bodies moved. | 50 |
| The drifting petal came to ground. | |
| The laughter chimed its perfect round. | |
| The broken syllable was ended. | |
| And I, so certain and so friended, | |
| How could I cloud, or how distress, | 55 |
| The heaven of your unconsciousness? | |
| Or shake at Time’s sufficient spell, | |
| Stammering of lights unutterable? | |
| The eternal holiness of you, | |
| The timeless end, you never knew, | 60 |
| The peace that lay, the light that shone. | |
| You never knew that I had gone | |
| A million miles away, and stayed | |
| A million years. The laughter played | |
| Unbroken round me; and the jest | 65 |
| Flashed on. And we that knew the best | |
| Down wonderful hours grew happier yet. | |
| I sang at heart, and talked, and eat, | |
| And lived from laugh to laugh, I too, | |
| When you were there, and you, and you. | 70 |
