THE NIGHT
Reading edition
I put aside the branches
That clothe the Door in gloom;
A glow-worm lit the pathway
And a lamp out of her room
Shook down a stifled greeting:
How could it greet aright
The thirst of years like deserts
That led up to this night?
But she, like sighing forests,
Stole on me—full of rest,
Her hair was like the sea’s wave,
Whiteness was in her breast,—
(So does one come, at night, upon a wall of roses.)
As in a stone of crystal
The cloudy web and flaw
87Turns, at a flash, to rainbows,
Wing’d I became—I saw
I sang;—but human singing
Ceased, in a burning awe.
Slow, amid leaves, in silence—
Rapt as the holy pray—
Flame into flame we trembled
And the world sank away.
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