Page:Leaves of Grass (1882).djvu/333

Rh I am she who adorn'd herself and folded her hair expectantly,

My truant lover has come, and it is dark.

Double yourself and receive me darkness,

Receive me and my lover too, he will not let me go without him.

I roll myself upon you as upon a bed, I resign myself to the dusk.

He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover,

He rises with me silently from the bed.

Darkness, you are gentler than my lover, his flesh was sweaty and panting,

I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.

My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions,

I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying.

Be careful darkness! already what was it touch'd me?

I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one,

I hear the heart-beat, I follow, I fade away.

I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,

Perfume and youth course through me and I am their wake.

It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's,

I sit low in a straw-bottom chair and carefully darn my grandson's stockings.

It is I too, the sleepless widow looking out on the winter midnight,

I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth.

A shroud I see and I am the shroud, I wrap a body and lie in the coffin,

It is dark here under ground, it is not evil or pain here, it is blank here, for reasons.

(It seems to me that every thing in the light and air ought to be happy,

Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him know he has enough.)