AFTER THE VISIT
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OME again to the placeWhere your presence was as a leaf that skimsDown a drouthy way whose ascent bedimsThe bloom on the farer’s face. Come again, with the feetThat were light on the green as a thistledown ball,And those mute ministrations to one and to allBeyond a man’s saying sweet. Until then the faint scentOf the bordering flowers swam unheeded away,And I marked not the charm in the changes of dayAs the cloud-colours came and went. Through the dark corridorsYour walk was so soundless I did not knowYour form from a phantom’s of long agoSaid to pass on the ancient floors, Till you drew from the shade,And I saw the large luminous living eyesRegard me in fixed inquiring-wiseAs those of a soul that weighed, Scarce consciously,The eternal question of what Life was,And why we were there, and by whose strange lawsThat which mattered most could not be.
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