[BNP/E3, 49A4 – 25-26]

 

1

 

They set him down by her side.

She saw them bring him in.

His lips were pale and wet.

Wet were his cheeks, her pride.

Wet were his garments green.

They set him down by her side

Where his death could seen.

 

She said no word, no token

That love outlasts death’s show.

She looked on as they set

Him down at her side, broken

At the wheel of Time’s Power.

She simply saw he was wet.

All that remained unspoken

Filled the cold air of that hour.

 

They asked her not a word.

They set him down, then stayed,

Then, seeing she nothing said,

 

[25v]

 

2

 

They went and became blurred

In the big room’s distant end

Then the door let them fade

Out of her sight that led

Her soul to his body’s blend

Of calm and disarrayed.

 

They turned back past the door

And watched her distant shape.

Twice from the corridor

They did look, squint, bend, gape.

But she was ever still.

Her eyes still looked on him.

Her contour tall and dim

Shone dark against the wall.

They put all their soul’s will

In seeing but that was all.

 

His death was thus. She looked

On him and thought he was dead.

 

[26r]

 

3

 

Was her form slightly stooped

Towards his cold, {…} bed?

Did she think of tears? Had

She in her a soul sad?

Why was she thus left cold

By death and his death there

Lying on the floor? Untold

It must remain for e’er.

 

One gesture, one soft cry,

One little leaning to

His body – that would show

Some love still waited by

Her presence still and cold.

But she no cry or gesture

Made. She kept voice and feature

Calm as a castle old.

 

[26v]

 

4

 

For she thought that being thus

Standing over his death,

Standing o’er his lack of breath,

In the vaguely luminous

Twilight room dark and dim,

Standing thus over him,

Motionless and sensuous

Of her unmotion’s sight

Seen by her inner eyes,

She was a picture painting

Not with paint but life’s acting,

And she was artist and model

She was the seer and the prize,

She was the seer’s delight,

 

That was the greatest picture

Out of all time and place.

And her immortal gesture

Ever at that tall grace.

Became a statue in God

In tints and of Thought

And is now seen in heaven

The greatest picture graven