The Change

Out of the past there rises a week -      Who shall read the years O! -      Out of the past there rises a week      Enringed with a purple zone.      Out of the past there rises a week      When thoughts were strung too thick to speak,     And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone.      In that week there was heard a singing -      Who shall spell the years, the years! -      In that week there was heard a singing,      And the white owl wondered why.      In that week, yea, a voice was ringing,      And forth from the casement were candles flinging     Radiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby.      Could that song have a mocking note? -      Who shall unroll the years O! -      Could that song have a mocking note      To the white owl's sense as it fell?      Could that song have a mocking note      As it trilled out warm from the singer's throat,     And who was the mocker and who the mocked when two felt all was well?      In a tedious trampling crowd yet later -      Who shall bare the years, the years! -      In a tedious trampling crowd yet later,      When silvery singings were dumb;      In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her,      Mid murks of night I stood to await her,     And the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was come.      She said with a travel-tired smile -      Who shall lift the years O! -      She said with a travel-tired smile,      Half scared by scene so strange;      She said, outworn by mile on mile,      The blurred lamps wanning her face the while,     "O Love, I am here; I am with you!" . . . Ah, that there should have come a change!      O the doom by someone spoken -      Who shall unseal the years, the years! -      O the doom that gave no token,      When nothing of bale saw we:      O the doom by someone spoken,      O the heart by someone broken,     The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me.     Jan.-Feb. 1913.