Classic Poem

Across an ancient darkness
I see your figure move,
Too proud for my compassion,
Too separate for love,
Aloof and calm and lonely,
Intent on ways apart;
While I — perhaps I only —
Questioned your heart.

Your heart despised its station,
Too human, hence accursed.
As of some fatal nation
The sacrifice, you durst
Disclose to no man ever
The pulse that gave you wings.
And you soared upward never
From your shadowings.

From shadows you departed
Toward shadows none can know,
You the high eager-hearted.
But now when May-nights blow
Their separate and lonely
Low winds out of the west
I think of you, you only,
And your locked breast.

Gone: — and it shall not matter.
The doom lies on the race.
Earth like a glass must shatter.
What of one vanished face?
Nothing is worth the loving.
Nothing has aim or end.
Yet tonight my heart is roving
Lonely, my friend.