Page:The Dial (Volume 76).djvu/620

500 Half running, dropped at the first ridge of the desert And there marked out those emblems on the sand That day by day I study and marvel at, With her white finger. I led her home asleep And once again she rose and swept the house In childish ignorance of all that passed. Even to-day, after some seven years, When maybe thrice in every moon her mouth Murmured the wisdom of the desert Jinns, She keeps that ignorance, nor has she now That first unnatural interest in my books. It seems enough that I am there; and yet Old fellow-student, whose most patient ear Heard all the anxiety of my passionate youth, It seems I must buy knowledge with my peace. What if she lose her ignorance, and so Dream that I love her only for the voice, That every gift and every word of praise Is but a payment for that midnight voice That is to age what milk is to a child! Were she to lose her love, because she had lost Her confidence in mine, or even lose Its first simplicity, love, voice, and all, All my fine feathers would be plucked away And I left shivering. The voice has drawn A quality of wisdom from her love's Particular quality. The signs and shapes; All those abstractions that you fancied were From the great Treatise of Parmenides; All, all those gyres and cubes and midnight things Are but a new expression of her body Drunk with the bitter sweetness of her youth. And now my utmost mystery is out. A woman's beauty is a storm-tossed banner; Under it wisdom stands, and I alone— Out of ten thousand winters, I alone— Nor dazzled by the embroidery, nor lost