Page:New poems and variant readings, Stevenson, 1918.djvu/111

Rh With answerable throbbings. On the stream,

Deep, swift, and clear, the lilies floated; fish

Through the shadows ran. There, thou and I

Read Kindness in our eyes and closed the match.

FIXED IS THE DOOM

is the doom; and to the last of years

Teacher and taught, friend, lover, parent, child,

Each walks, though near, yet separate; each beholds

His dear ones shine beyond him like the stars.

We also, love, forever dwell apart;

With cries approach, with cries behold the gulph,

The Unvaulted; as two great eagles that do wheel in air

Above a mountain, and with screams confer,

Far heard athwart the cedars.

Yet the years

Shall bring us ever nearer; day by day

Endearing, week by week, till death at last

Dissolve that long divorce. By faith we love,

Not knowledge; and by faith, though far removed,

Dwell as in perfect nearness, heart to heart.

We but excuse

Those things we merely are; and to our souls

A brave deception cherish.

So from unhappy war a man returns