Marriage

The Sun sank in the thunderous sky of the town,

And I rose in the glittering hall and strode through the people

And went to my room, and laid me down with a Spirit–

There was lightning out in the land beyond my window.

Black was the night where lay that shining Spirit,

That slim, white, glimmering body, my soul’s companion

And the trees and rocks and waters and hills around me

Stood black and mournful in flashes about my bed.

The trees that were drooping around, the rocks and waters,

The gloom-hung hills, the carven and frenzied silences

Then worshipped that glimmering body, that white cascade

That shone in my dark-hung cavern dug out of the sky.

And I wondered how long ere the bolt should fall and destroy us,

Ere we should go out like the spurt of a match in the darkness

Having one glimpse of that wild and passionate country,

Those woods and ravines dark-graven by summer lightning;

And I stared at the wall and the little distant window,

The world shrivelled up to a low and far horizon,

To a few bare hills in a sudden flash of lightning,

And the glimmering Spirit I kissed in the gloom beside me.