In the Pompeian Room

WITHIN the old walls, flaking red, I stand.
Love, hold my hand!
I look out through the little window, square
And iron-barred; museum twilight there
Beyond it now, but then, Pompeian sun,
And brisk steps passing, sounds of voices light,
Roman and Greek; or else, Pompeian night,
And fewer steps, and voices low, or none.

The aroma of those other lives blows past,
Blows over me — oppressive, faintly sweet.
I am heavy with a sense of vague defeat
Because of those gay lives, that could not last.

I am overwhelmed by Time — Time, the unseen!
Time, the unheard, Time, that we cannot touch!
That touches us, and — lo — we are even such
As those gay others, ages long, have been.

The aroma of our lives — oppressive, faint —
Is idly blown about the careless years,
Bringing to later lives visions, or fears
Like these of ours. Other hands grope and meet
As ours do now, other hearts feel the weight
Of Time, that light, relentless, crushing thing.
Other friends feel their present vanishing
Dim into past — what matter soon or late?

There is no present — sick, I understand.
Love, hold my hand!

I know the feeling, friend, I know the fear —
My hand, Love, here!
A hand-clasp is so frail a thing against
The light, relentless, feather-footed sweep
Of Time’s pursuit! And yet — a thought lurks deep —
Too deep, almost, for words: — if Time commenced
And ended here, in just our human mesh?
If it were really nothing, had no being
Save in our own strange, human way of seeing?
Held as we are in the dear bonds of flesh?

Think, Love, — if I were blind — if I were blind!
How might my yearning fingers search your face
And fumble there — poor strayers! — for a trace
Of all I see as you, yet never find
The dear illumined vision of the whole
That one light glance bestows upon me now!
Even so, might it be, if we knew how
To gain the immediate vision of the soul,
That we should find our thought of Time to be
But as the groping hand — should find no Past,
No Future, but a whole of life too vast
To be called Present — say, Eternity?

“Before Abraham was, I am” — strange word!
Was this its meaning? Human symbols fail
Forever! Human half-thoughts flicker pale
Back to the unvoiced depths from which they stirred.

My heart is sick with dullness and with fear —
Your hand, Love, — here!