Interim

Darling, how near we lay To Lethe on that day When, wandering far amid the wreathèd fog And through the veiling verdure spring had drawn On slopes where fire had ravened years agone, We paused awhile, and made our bed between The mounting bushes green And the black, fallen log. . . . Closely, more closely ever, Like flames that meet and mingle in blown air, Mouth drew to mouth, bosom to bosom there In the long kiss that could not sever. Sequestered and apart, In death-grey mist and silence deeplier furled, While faded the wan world In ghostliness and mystery retreating, We felt the answering throb of heart to heart Like one warm pulse amid oblivion beating. And our love seemed a solitary flame Soaring from lands of pallid nothingness That had no bound nor name; Where all hours that had been And days to be Were part of some abolished calendar; Where all things fell away, and ebbed afar As if dissolved within The wavering vapors thin: Yea, the pale mists, and life, and memory And all things passed before our ecstasy Like alien phantoms, furtive and unknown, To their dim tombs returning. . . . O love unquenchable and stilly burning! The peace at thy white core was made our own. . . . A little, and we too had surely passed With incorporeal ease Upon the voidness vast— Going with those frail vapors like a breath, Drifting from mortal ecstasy to death Among the ghostly trees.