Out of the past there rises a week—

      Who shall read the years O!—

   Out of the past there rises a week

      Enringed with a purple zone.

   Out of the past there rises a week

   When thoughts were strung too thick to speak,

And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone.

   In that week there was heard a singing—

      Who shall spell the years, the years!—

   In that week there was heard a singing,

      And the white owl wondered why.

   In that week, yea, a voice was ringing,

   And forth from the casement were candles flinging

Radiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby.

   Could that song have a mocking note?—

      Who shall unroll the years O!—

   Could that song have a mocking note

      To the white owl’s sense as it fell?

   Could that song have a mocking note

   As it trilled out warm from the singer’s throat,

And who was the mocker and who the mocked when two felt all was well?

   In a tedious trampling crowd yet later—

      Who shall bare the years, the years!—

   In a tedious trampling crowd yet later,

      When silvery singings were dumb;

   In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her,

   Mid murks of night I stood to await her,

And the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was come.

   She said with a travel-tired smile—

      Who shall lift the years O!—

   She said with a travel-tired smile,

      Half scared by scene so strange;

   She said, outworn by mile on mile,

   The blurred lamps wanning her face the while,

“O Love, I am here; I am with you!” . . . Ah, that there should have come a change!

   O the doom by someone spoken—

      Who shall unseal the years, the years!—

   O the doom that gave no token,

      When nothing of bale saw we:

   O the doom by someone spoken,

   O the heart by someone broken,

The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me.

Jan.-Feb. 1913.