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21

3: THE NIGHT

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 waves,
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
Turns, 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.