Seventeen years ago you said Something that sounded like Good-bye; And everybody thinks that you are dead, But I.
So I, as I grow stiff and cold To this and that say Good-bye too; And everybody sees that I am old But you.
And one fine morning in a sunny lane Some boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear That nobody can love their way again While over there You will have smiled, I shall have tossed your hair.
From our low seat beside the fire Where we have dozed and dreamed and watched the glow Or raked the ashes, stopping so We scarcely saw the sun or rain Above, or looked much higher Than this same quiet red or burned-out fire. To-night we heard a call, A rattle on the window-pane, A voice on the sharp air, And felt a breath stirring our hair, A flame within us: Something swift and tall Swept in and out and that was all. Was it a bright or dark angel? Who can know? It left no mark upon the snow, But suddenly it snapped the chain Unbarred, flung wide the door Which will not shut again; And so we cannot sit here anymore. We must arise and go: The world is cold without And dark and hedged about With mystery and enmity and doubt, But we must go Though yet we do not know Who called, or what marks we shall leave upon the snow.
I remember rooms that have had their part In the steady slowing down of the heart. The room in Paris, the room at Geneva, The little damp room with the seaweed smell, And that ceaseless maddening sound of the tide -- Rooms where for good or for ill -- things died. But there is the room where we (two) lie dead, Though every morning we seem to wake and might just as well seem to sleep again As we shall somewhere in the other quieter, dustier bed Out there in the sun -- in the rain.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 