| |
| THIS is her house. On one side there is darkness, | |
| On one side there is light. | |
| Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns— | |
| O, any number—it will still be night. | |
| And there are echoing stairs to lead you downward | 5 |
| To long sonorous halls. | |
| And here is spring forever at these windows, | |
| With roses on the walls. | |
| |
| This is her room. On one side there is music— | |
| On one side not a sound. | 10 |
| At one step she could move from love to silence, | |
| Feel myriad darkness coiling round. | |
| And here are balconies from which she heard you, | |
| Your steady footstep on the stair. | |
| And here the glass in which she saw your shadow | 15 |
| As she unbound her hair. | |
| |
| Here is the room—with ghostly walls dissolving— | |
| The twilight room in which she called you ‘lover’; | |
| And the floorless room in which she called you ‘friend.’ | |
| So many times, in doubt, she ran between them!— | 20 |
| Through windy corridors of darkening end. | |
| |
| Here she could stand with one dim light above her | |
| And hear far music, like a sea in caverns, | |
| Beating away at hollowed walls of stone. | |
| And here, in a roofless room when it was raining, | 25 |
| She bore the patient sorrow of rain alone. | |
| |
| Your words were walls which suddenly froze around her. | |
| Your words were windows—large enough for moonlight, | |
| Too small to let her through. | |
| Your letters—fragrant cloisters faint with music. | 30 |
| The music that assuaged her there was you. | |
| |
| How many times she heard your step ascending | |
| Yet never saw your face! | |
| She heard them turn again, ring slowly fainter, | |
| Till silence swept the place. | 35 |
| Why had you gone?… The door, perhaps, mistaken…. | |
| You would go elsewhere. The deep walls were shaken. | |
| |
| A certain roseleaf—sent without intention— | |
| Became, with time, a woven web of fire— | |
| She wore it, and was warm. | 40 |
| A certain hurried glance, let fall at parting, | |
| Became, with time, the flashings of a storm. | |
| |
| Yet there was nothing asked, no hint to tell you | |
| Of secret idols carved in secret chambers | |
| From all you did and said. | 45 |
| Nothing was done, until at last she knew you. | |
| Nothing was known till somehow she was dead. | |
| |
| How did she die?—You say she died of poison. | |
| Simple and swift. And much to be regretted. | |
| You did not see her pass | 50 |
| So many thousand times from light to darkness, | |
| Pausing so many times before her glass; | |
| |
| You did not see how many times she hurried | |
| To lean from certain windows, vainly hoping, | |
| Passionate still for beauty, remembered spring. | 55 |
| You did not know how long she clung to music, | |
| You did not hear her sing. | |
| |
| Did she, then, make her choice, and step out bravely | |
| From sound to silence—close, herself, those windows? | |
| Or was it true, instead, | 60 |
| That darkness moved,—for once,—and so possessed her?… | |
| We’ll never know, you say, for she is dead. | |
| |
