The Anabasis

In Mem. L. N. L. Ob. MCMXXXII Noble beyond degree In a democracy: Slight woman whose spent grace Banishes their vision To the thin trackless air, Stop now upon the stair As they have seen you do Meridional and true, And with nut-brown hair Restore location To them now blinded quite By the grave s after-light, For unless it be done The slave heart all alone Strives tunelessly To go where you are gone- Whether to vaults of air, Imponderable nowhere, Or the reducing sea- The regions that are fair Beyond heart's mastery. They try your form to see (Its lineless agony) In our philosophy Which stops, as cold and bare As headless hair, As lifeless as your bones, Obtuse as meadow stones: Re-corporated be! (They cry you in despair) Lest we, a blind race, Imitate mortality For all our living's pace, And drawn into the bliss Of your dispersed face Should join, before our place, Death's long anabasis.