16. The Wayfarers

IS it the hour? We leave this resting-place

Made fair by one another for a while.

Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;

The long road then, unlit by your faint smile.

Ah! the long road! and you so far away!

Oh, I’ll remember! but … each crawling day

Will pale a little your scarlet lips, each mile

Dull the dear pain of your remembered face.

…Do you think there’s a far border town, somewhere,

The desert’s edge, last of the lands we know,

Some gaunt eventual limit of our light,

In which I’ll find you waiting; and we’ll go

Together, hand in hand again, out there,

Into the waste we know not, into the night?