16. Poor little place, where its one priest comes To the dozen folk from their scattered homes, 17. To drop from the charcoal-burners' huts, Or climb from the hemp-dressers' low shed, Leave the grange where the woodman stores his nuts Or the wattled cote where the fowlers spread Their gear on the rock's bare juts. 18. It has some pretension too, this front, 19. Not from the fault of the builder, though, Where three carved beams make a certain show, Dating good thought of our architect's 'Five, six, nine, he lets you know. 20. And all day long a bird sings there, And a stray sheep drinks at the pond at times: The place is silent and aware; It has had its scenes, its joys and crimes, But that is its own affair. 21. My perfect wife, my Leonor, Oh, heart my own, oh, eyes, mine too, Whom else could I dare look backward for, With whom beside should I dare pursue The path gray heads abhor? 22. For it leads to a crag's sheer edge with them; 23. With me, youth led-I will speak now, Mutely 24. When, if I think but deep enough, You are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme; And you, too, find without a rebuff The response your soul seeks many a time Piercing its fine flesh-stuff 25. My own, confirm me! If I tread 26. My own, see where the years conduct! 27. Think, when our one soul understands The great Word which makes all things newWhen earth breaks up and Heaven expandsHow will the change strike me and you In the House not made with hands? 28. Oh, I must feel your brain prompt mine, You must be just before, in fine, See and make me see, for your part, New depths of the Divine! 29. But who could have expected this, 80. Come back with me to the first of all, Let us lean and love it over again Let us now forget and then recall, Break the rosary in a pearly rain, And gather what we let fall 31. What did I say?—that a small bird sings 32. But at afternoon or almost eve It must get rid of what it knows, 33. Hither we walked, then, side by side, Arm in arm and cheek to cheek, And still I questioned or replied, While my heart, convulsed to really speak, Lay choking in its pride. 34. Silent the crumbling bridge we cross, And care about the fresco's loss, And wish for our souls a like retreat, And wonder at the moss. 35. Stoop and kneel on the settle under Look through the window's grated square: Nothing to see! for fear of plunder, The cross is down and the altar bare, As if thieves don't fear thunder. |