[BNP/E3, 31A – 38]

56

La Chercheuse

Pale with the sense of being mortal,

     Now dost thou, passing yearning's glades,

Knock with cold hands at the hushed portal

     Of the closed palace of the shades.

Thy hands fall and thy wide eyes grope.

Oh, let me kiss thy feet and hope!

Let us not wish to understand,

     Bravely despair even of despair;

Cold unfelt hand in cold dead hand,

     Let us set out for mere Somewhere,

With bodies by the cold made none,

By night to invisibleness done.

Perhaps, thus losing earthly goal,

     Our sense of us numbed to innerness,

Sudden we shall find ourselves all Soul,

     Hand in hand spirits, waked to bliss,

Having, through some Gate not in space,

Lo! lapsed to everlasting grace.

[38v]

La chercheuse

Pales with the sense of being mortal,

     Now dost thou, passing yearning’s valley,

{…}