I caught the smell of ether
From the glass-roofed room
Where the hospital stood.
Suddenly all about me
I felt a mist of anguish
And the old, old hour of dread
When Death had shambled by.
Yellow with time it is,
This letter on which I look;
But up from it comes a perfume
That stabs me still to the heart;
And suddenly, at the odour,
Through a ghost-like mist I know
Rapture and love and wild regret
When Life, and You, went by.
Outside the long window,
With his head on the stone sill,
The dog is lying,
Gazing at his Beloved.
His eyes are wet and urgent,
And his body is taut and shaking.
It is cold on the terrace;
A pale wind licks along the stone slabs,
But the dog gazes through the glass
And is content.
The Beloved is writing a letter.
Occasionally she speaks to the dog,
But she is thinking of her writing.
Does she, too, give her devotion to one
Not worthy?
Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper
Like draggled fly's legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves ?
Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor
Spattered with moonlight ?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them
Of blossoming hawthorns.
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you ;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.
Because there was no wind.
The smoke of your letters hung in the air
For a long time ;
And its shape
Was the shape of your face.
My Beloved.