SOMETIMES MY EYES SO LONG, IN SILENT HAZE

Sometimes my eyes so long, in silent haze,
To stay unseeing past that gauzy shroud,
For to the world my grief seemed dimmed and bowed,
My crystal tear lay frozen in its glaze.

Its cut-glass charm is drained and fades away,
The playful shadows slowly die and wane;
No words of love will blossom through the plane
Of canvas stretched in cold and pale display.

Upon that cloth I trace the faintest lines,
So light the heart can scarcely grasp their meaning,
Yet still that vacant gaze goes on, unweaning,
Beyond the veil—for whose concealed designs?

Why did we hide behind a cloth of hush,
And paint from either side, yet still recalling
Two minutes of one heaven, never falling,
Amid the years—I will not probe or rush.

To know is pain—to lose all right to rest,
No sleep, no waking, bound in circling yearning;
Yet still the brush recalls that secret burning,
And thief-like heart conceals what it possessed.

No features will revive upon that frame,
But winds will stir the shifting veil between us,
And guard us both from treachery unseen thus,
Enfolding us in darkness all the same.

No longer do my eyes consent to gaze,
Upon that canvas, dimmed in ashen tone;
I rend the veil!—no more that ashen haze,
And turquoise heaven falls—you are not alone.