Page:The torrent and The night before.djvu/46

 And yet so swiftly!—there came the knowledge That the marvelous life I had lived was my life; That the glorious world I had loved was my world;— And that every man and every woman And every child was a different being, Wrought, with a different heat and fired With passions born of a single spirit;— That the pleasure I felt was not their pleasure, Nor my sorrow—a kind of nameless pity For something, I knew not what—their sorrow. And thus was I taught my first hard lesson,— The lesson we suffer the most in learning: That a happy man is a man forgetful Of all the torturing ills around him.

When or where I first met the woman I cherished and made my wife, no matter. Enough to say that I found her and kept her Here in my heart with as pure a devotion As ever Christ felt for his brothers. Forgive me For naming his name in your patient presence; But I feel my words, and the truth I utter Is God’s own truth. I loved that woman!— Not for her face, but for something fairer— Something diviner—I thought—than beauty: I loved the spirit—the human something That seemed to chime with my own condition, And make soul-music when we were together;— And we were never apart from the moment My eyes flashed into her eyes the message That swept itself in a quivering answer Back through my strange lost being. My pulses Leapt with an aching speed; and the measure Of this great world grew small and smaller, Till it seemed the sky and the land and the ocean Closed at last in a mist all golden Around us two.—And we stood for a season