Once in a smoking-car, I saw a scene
That made my blood stand still....
While the sun smouldered in a great ravine,
And I, with elbow on the window-sill,
Was watching the dim ember of the west,
Half-heard, but poignant as a bell
For fire, there came a moan; the voice of one in hell.
I turned. Across the car were two young men,
Yet hardly more than boys,
French by their look, and brothers,
And one was moaning on the other’s breast.
His face was hid away. I could not tell
What words he said, half English and half French. I only knew
Both men were suffering, not one but two.
And then that face came into view,
Gaunt and unshaved, with shadows and wild eyes,
A face of madness and of desolation. And his cries,
For all his mate could do,
Rang out, a shrill and savage noise,
And tears ran down the stubble of his cheek.
The other face was younger, clean and sad
With the manful stricken beauty of a lad
Who had intended always to be glad.
.... The touch of his compassion, like a mother’s,
Pitied the madman, soothed him and caressed.
And then I heard him speak,
In a low voice: “Mon frère, mon frère!
Calme-toi! Right here’s your place.”
And, opening his coat, he pressed
Upon his heart the wanderer’s face
And smoothed the tangled hair.
After a moment peaceful there,
The maniac screamed—struck out and fell
Across his brother’s arm. Love could not quell
His anger. Wrists together high in air
He rose and with a yell
Brought down his handcuffs toward his brother’s face—
But his hands were pinned below his waist,
By a burly, silent sheriff, and some hideous thing was bound
Around his arms and feet
And he was laid upon the narrow seat.
And then that sound,
That moan
Of one forsaken and alone!
“Seigneur! Le createur du ciel et de la terre!
Forgotten me! Forgotten me!”
.... And when the voice grew weak
The brother leaned again, embraced
The huddled body. But a shriek
Repulsed him: “Non! Détache-moi! I don’t care
For you. Non! Tu es l’homme qui m’a trahi!
Non! Tu n’es pas mon frère!”
But as often as that stricken mind would fill
With the great anguish and the rush of hate,
The boy, his young eyes older, older,
Would curve his shoulder
To the other’s pain and hold that haunted face close to his face
And say: “O wait!
You will know me better by and by.
Mon pauvre petit, be still!
Right here’s your place.”
.... The gleam! and then the blinded stare,
The cry:
“Non, tu n’es pas mon frère!”
I saw myself, myself, as blind
As he. And something smothers
My reason. And I do not know my brothers....
But every day declare:
“Non, tu n’es pas mon frère!”
But in the outcome, I can see....
Closer than any brother
Shall they be to one another
And to me,
Closer than mother, father, daughter, son,
O closer than a lover shall they be,
When madness like a storm shall roll
Away, leaving illumination. Within everyone
The nearness has begun
Toward some loved life and toward the soul
Perceived therein: the elemental ache to be made whole
With beauty and with love.—O I have ached and longed in the embrace
Of one I love to be undone
Of differences, to yield and run
Within the very blood and being of my dear,
One body and one face,
One spirit in all space,
Mingled and indissoluble. And I have felt a mortal tear
Smart on my lids, when I had been so near
To Celia that I knew not which was I,
Yet the day returned between us and the sky
Held distances that were not clear
To us and we were two again that had been almost one.
A mother yields herself to enter
Her child, who nestles close and sleeps
With all his wisdom pressed
For comfort to her breast.
I can remember my relinquishment
Of consciousness and care,
Almost of life, upon my mother’s heart—the great content
Of being there.
And then I loved a starry boy of three,
Who looked about him, smiled and took to me,
Held out his arms and chose me among men
For his companion, to confide
His smiles in and to be
At ease with. Closely by my side
He sat and touched the world, to see
If it were solid and worth touching. When he died,
I too was dead ... and yet I hear him say,
Laughing within my heart today:
“Lo, being you,
And having lived your years, this will I do,
And this, and this!”
I have my boy again.
I greet him nearer than a kiss.
And so, from birth to death, out of confusion
The secret creeps
Across the deeps
From its eternal centre
In the soul.
Communion is the cause and the conclusion
And the unfailing sacrament
Not only of the mystical frequenter
Of temples, where the body of the dead
Creates divine
The living body through the bread
And wine,
But God discovers and discovers
His beauty in all lovers.
And, to make His beauty whole,
Body and body, soul and soul, combine
His one identity with yours and mine.
I know a fellow in a steel-mill who, intent
Upon his labours and his happiness, had meant
In his own wisdom to be blest,
Had made his own unaided way
To schooling, opportunity,
Success. And then he loved and married. And his bride,
After a brief year, died.
I went to him to see
If I might comfort him. The comfort came to me.
“David,” I said, “under the temporary ache
There is unwonted nearness with the dead.”
I felt his two hands take
The sentence from me with a grip
Forged in the mills. He told me that his tears were shed
Before her breath went. After that, instead
Of grief, she came herself. He felt her slip
Into his being like a miracle, her lip
Whispering on his, to slake
His need of her.—“And in the night I wake
With wonder and I find my bride
And her embrace there in our bed,
Within my very being, not outside!
.... We have each other more, much more,”
He said, “now than before.
This very moment while I shake
Your hand, my friend,
Not only I,
But she is touching you—and laughs with me because I cried
For her.... People would think me crazy if I told.
But something in what you said made me bold
To let you meet my bride!”
It was not madness. David’s eye
Was clear and open-seeing.
His life
Had faced in death and understood in his young wife,
As I when Celia died,
The secret of God’s being.