The room is full of you! -- As I came in And closed the door behind me, all at once A something in the air, intangible, Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!-- Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed Each other room's dear personality.
The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,-- The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death-- Has strangled that habitual breath of home Whose expiration leaves all houses dead;
And wheresoe'er I look is hideous change.
Save here. Here 'twas as if a weed-choked gate Had opened at my touch, and I had stepped Into some long-forgot, enchanted, strange, Sweet garden of a thousand years ago And suddenly thought, "I have been here before!"
You are not here. I know that you are gone, And will not ever enter here again.
And yet it seems to me, if I should speak, Your silent step must wake across the hall;
If I should turn my head, that your sweet eyes Would kiss me from the door. -- So short a time To teach my life its transposition to This difficult and unaccustomed key!-- The room is as you left it; your last touch-- A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself As saintly -- hallows now each simple thing;
Hallows and glorifies, and glows between The dust's grey fingers like a shielded light.
There is your book, just as you laid it down, Face to the table, -- I cannot believe That you are gone! -- Just then it seemed to me You must be here. I almost laughed to think How like reality the dream had been;
Yet knew before I laughed, and so was still.
That book, outspread, just as you laid it down!
Perhaps you thought, "I wonder what comes next, And whether this or this will be the end";
So rose, and left it, thinking to return.
Perhaps that chair, when you arose and passed Out of the room, rocked silently a while Ere it again was still. When you were gone Forever from the room, perhaps that chair, Stirred by your movement, rocked a little while, Silently, to and fro. . .
And here are the last words your fingers wrote, Scrawled in broad characters across a page In this brown book I gave you. Here your hand, Guiding your rapid pen, moved up and down.
Here with a looping knot you crossed a "t", And here another like it, just beyond These two eccentric "e's". You were so small, And wrote so brave a hand!
How strange it seems That of all words these are the words you chose!
And yet a simple choice; you did not know You would not write again. If you had known-- But then, it does not matter, -- and indeed If you had known there was so little time You would have dropped your pen and come to me And this page would be empty, and some phrase Other than this would hold my wonder now.
Yet, since you could not know, and it befell That these are the last words your fingers wrote, There is a dignity some might not see In this, "I picked the first sweet-pea to-day."
To-day! Was there an opening bud beside it You left until to-morrow? -- O my love, The things that withered, -- and you came not back!
That day you filled this circle of my arms That now is empty. (O my empty life!)
That day -- that day you picked the first sweet-pea,-- And brought it in to show me! I recall With terrible distinctness how the smell Of your cool gardens drifted in with you.
I know, you held it up for me to see And flushed because I looked not at the flower, But at your face; and when behind my look You saw such unmistakable intent You laughed and brushed your flower against my lips.
(You were the fairest thing God ever made, I think.) And then your hands above my heart Drew down its stem into a fastening, And while your head was bent I kissed your hair.
I wonder if you knew. (Beloved hands! Somehow I cannot seem to see them still. Somehow I cannot seem to see the dust In your bright hair.) What is the need of Heaven When earth can be so sweet? -- If only God Had let us love, -- and show the world the way!
Strange cancellings must ink th' eternal books When love-crossed-out will bring the answer right!
That first sweet-pea! I wonder where it is.
It seems to me I laid it down somewhere, And yet, -- I am not sure. I am not sure, Even, if it was white or pink; for then 'Twas much like any other flower to me, Save that it was the first. I did not know, Then, that it was the last. If I had known-- But then, it does not matter. Strange how few, After all's said and done, the things that are Of moment.
Few indeed! When I can make Of ten small words a rope to hang the world!
"I had you and I have you now no more."
