Valedictory

I had remarked--how sharply one observes     When life is disappearing round the curves     Of yet another corner, out of sight!--     I had remarked when it was "good luck" and "good night"     And "a good journey to you," on her face     Certain enigmas penned in the hieroglyphs     Of that half frown and queer fixed smile and trace     Of clouded thought in those brown eyes,     Always so happily clear of hows and ifs--     My poor bleared mind!--and haunting whys.     There I stood, holding her farewell hand,     (Pressing my life and soul and all     The world to one good-bye, till, small     And smaller pressed, why there I'd stand     Dead when they vanished with the sight of her).     And I saw that she had grown aware,     Queer puzzled face! of other things     Beyond the present and her own young speed,     Of yesterday and what new days might breed     Monstrously when the future brings     A charger with your late-lamented head:     Aware of other people's lives and will,     Aware, perhaps, aware even of me ...     The joyous hope of it! But still     I pitied her; for it was sad to see     A goddess shorn of her divinity.     In the midst of her speed she had made pause,     And doubts with all their threat of claws,     Outstripped till now by her unconsciousness,     Had seized on her; she was proved mortal now.     "Live, only live! For you were meant     Never to know a thought's distress,     But a long glad astonishment     At the world's beauty and your own.     The pity of you, goddess, grown     Perplexed and mortal."                 Yet ... yet ... can it be     That she is aware, perhaps, even of me?     And life recedes, recedes; the curve is bare,     My handkerchief flutters blankly in the air;     And the question rumbles in the void:     Was she aware, was she after all aware?