Poems of London, and Other Verses
different way? 

 

 

 "EVENING" 

 Beloved of my soul, the day is done; The busy noises cease, the lights are low; Gently the doors shut to behind each one Seeking his sleep; the fading embers glow On silent hearths; the silent ashes fall— Ah, absent spirit, do you hear me call, Me, sitting waiting by the fireside? 

 This is the hour of all the night and day, —This is the hour when, work put aside, And all the talking, whether grave or gay, For pleasure or for profit, hushed and dumb, We used to, in the days before you died, Seek out each other's mind for rest, and say: "Now am I home, and all is well with me; To-day is gone, to-morrow is to come; Here let us be." 

 Surely, for all the barriers of sense, And the stark grossness of this flesh I wear, For all the vacant distance of the skies Between me here alone, and you, gone hence, There must be some quick knowledge; I must hear That dear familiar voice again, must see Some semblance of you with my bodily eyes, Now, now, when in the solitude I yearn Towards your heart, my home; now when I turn Humbly and searchingly towards that goal That lies beyond the purchase of the world— You again, you, dear comrade of my soul. 

 

 

 FINIS 

 Life, in its unimaginable heights, When we may seize and apprehend the true Soul essence, of one nature with the stars: Rare moments when our senses are a mist That the truth shines through:—oh, most strange and rare, Such ecstasies as unimprisoned souls Experience in that thin empyrean Beyond the gross world; this we two have known We two together. There are memories Of such high happiness in a fence of pain As martyrs in their fiery heart of death Have blessed their God for; passion and holiness, When all the body (sinew, bone, and brain) Are like a harp, from which the spirit makes Marvels of harmony; some sense too rare To be called happiness, not to be named indeed In human speech—this we have touched and known Together, at some thrilling edge of time. 

 I fall away from it; the barriers close About me; I descend from the clear heights Into the plains and valleys of the world. The traffic of the market-place is 
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