Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/302

 They bring me nearer to the elements From which I came than I care now to be." "You owe a service to those elements; For by their service you outwitted age And made the world a kingdom of your will." He touched her hand, smiling : "Whatever service Of mine awaits them will not be forgotten," He said; and the smile faded on his face. "Now of all graceless and ungrateful wizards " But there she ceased, for she found in his eyes The first of a new fear. "The wrong word rules Today," she said; "and we'll have no more journeys." Although he wandered rather more than ever Since he had come again to Brittany From Camelot, Merlin found eternally Before him a new loneliness that made Of garden, park, and woodland, all alike, A desolation and a changelessness Defying reason, without Vivian Beside him, like a child with a black head, Or moving on before him, or somewhere So near him that, although he saw it not With eyes, he felt the picture of her beauty And shivered at the nearness of her being. Without her now there was no past or future, And a vague, soul-consuming premonition He found the only tenant of the present; He wondered, when she was away from him, If his avenging injured intellect Might shine with Arthur's kingdom a twin mirror, Fate's plaything, for new ages without eyes JTo see therein themselves and their declension. Love made his hours a martyrdom without her; The world was like an empty house without her,