If you should come tonight
And say, "I could not go, and leave
You here alone in pain,"
How should I take delight
In that or dare believe,
Lest I deceive myself with dreams again?...
If you should come tonight.

Cambridge, 1916


X

You are very far to-night;
So far that my beseeching hands
Clasp on the bright
Metallic lock of some forbidden portal,
Where you alone may enter in;
And my long gaze
Blurs in a memory of other lands,
And other times.
You stand immortal.
You have fought clear beyond these nights and days
Whose rusty chimes
Shake the frail, faded tapestries of sin.
You stand immortal,
Intense with peace, immaculate as stone,
Raising white arms of praise,
Far from this night, triumphantly alone.