[BNP/E3, 49A4 – 24]

On unseen arms of (Eternity)[1] and Repose.

-----

It rained still. But slow-treading night came in,

Closing the weary eyelids of each sense.

The very inner sense[2] of self and soul

Grew like a landscape through dim raining, dim.

The Emperor lay still, so still that now

He half forgot where he lay, nor whence

The sorrow that was still salt on his lips

And bitter in this tremulous uncontrol

Issued. The things he felt were like the rim

That haloes round the moon when the night weeps.

His head was bowed into his arms, and they

On the low couch, foreign to his sense, lay.

His eyes were closed, but seemed open to him and seeing

The naked floor, dark, cold, sad and unmeaning.

His hurting breath was all his sense could know.

Out of the falling darkness the wind rose

And fell. A voice swooned in the courts below.

And the Emperor slept… The gods came now

And bore something away, no sense knows how,

[24v]

All had been something very far, a scroll

Rolled up.

{…} (the rest God’s jealous hands

Hide from our eyes and[3] is a thing heard of far lands)

 
[1] (Eternity) /Power\
[2] sense /consciousness\
[3] our eyes and /us and seem\