At The Word "Farewell"

She looked like a bird from a cloud      On the clammy lawn,     Moving alone, bare-browed      In the dim of dawn.     The candles alight in the room      For my parting meal     Made all things withoutdoors loom      Strange, ghostly, unreal.     The hour itself was a ghost,      And it seemed to me then     As of chances the chance furthermost      I should see her again.     I beheld not where all was so fleet      That a Plan of the past     Which had ruled us from birthtime to meet      Was in working at last:     No prelude did I there perceive      To a drama at all,     Or foreshadow what fortune might weave      From beginnings so small;     But I rose as if quicked by a spur      I was bound to obey,     And stepped through the casement to her      Still alone in the gray.     "I am leaving you . . . Farewell!" I said,      As I followed her on     By an alley bare boughs overspread;      "I soon must be gone!"     Even then the scale might have been turned      Against love by a feather,     - But crimson one cheek of hers burned      When we came in together.