And to me,

Closer than mother, father, daughter, son,

O closer than a lover shall they be,

When madness like a storm shall roll

Away, leaving illumination. Within everyone

The nearness has begun

Toward some loved life and toward the soul

Perceived therein: the elemental ache to be made whole

With beauty and with love.—O I have ached and longed in the embrace

Of one I love to be undone

Of differences, to yield and run

Within the very blood and being of my dear,

One body and one face,

One spirit in all space,

Mingled and indissoluble. And I have felt a mortal tear

Smart on my lids, when I had been so near

To Celia that I knew not which was I,

Yet the day returned between us and the sky

Held distances that were not clear

To us and we were two again that had been almost one.

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