<h3> <SPAN name="summer"></SPAN> Late Summer<br/> </h3>
<p class="t3">
(Alcaics)<br/></p>
<p>Confused, he found her lavishing feminine<br/>
Gold upon clay, and found her inscrutable;<br/>
And yet she smiled. Why, then, should horrors<br/>
Be as they were, without end, her playthings?<br/></p>
<p>And why were dead years hungrily telling her<br/>
Lies of the dead, who told them again to her?<br/>
If now she knew, there might be kindness<br/>
Clamoring yet where a faith lay stifled.<br/></p>
<p>A little faith in him, and the ruinous<br/>
Past would be for time to annihilate,<br/>
And wash out, like a tide that washes<br/>
Out of the sand what a child has drawn there.<br/></p>
<p>God, what a shining handful of happiness,<br/>
Made out of days and out of eternities,<br/>
Were now the pulsing end of patience —<br/>
Could he but have what a ghost had stolen!<br/></p>
<p>What was a man before him, or ten of them,<br/>
While he was here alive who could answer them,<br/>
And in their teeth fling confirmations<br/>
Harder than agates against an egg-shell?<br/></p>
<p>But now the man was dead, and would come again<br/>
Never, though she might honor ineffably<br/>
The flimsy wraith of him she conjured<br/>
Out of a dream with his wand of absence.<br/></p>
<p>And if the truth were now but a mummery,<br/>
Meriting pride's implacable irony,<br/>
So much the worse for pride. Moreover,<br/>
Save her or fail, there was conscience always.<br/></p>
<p>Meanwhile, a few misgivings of innocence,<br/>
Imploring to be sheltered and credited,<br/>
Were not amiss when she revealed them.<br/>
Whether she struggled or not, he saw them.<br/></p>
<p>Also, he saw that while she was hearing him<br/>
Her eyes had more and more of the past in them;<br/>
And while he told what cautious honor<br/>
Told him was all he had best be sure of,<br/></p>
<p>He wondered once or twice, inadvertently,<br/>
Where shifting winds were driving his argosies,<br/>
Long anchored and as long unladen,<br/>
Over the foam for the golden chances.<br/></p>
<p>"If men were not for killing so carelessly,<br/>
And women were for wiser endurances,"<br/>
He said, "we might have yet a world here<br/>
Fitter for Truth to be seen abroad in;<br/></p>
<p>"If Truth were not so strange in her nakedness,<br/>
And we were less forbidden to look at it,<br/>
We might not have to look." He stared then<br/>
Down at the sand where the tide threw forward<br/></p>
<p>Its cold, unconquered lines, that unceasingly<br/>
Foamed against hope, and fell. He was calm enough,<br/>
Although he knew he might be silenced<br/>
Out of all calm; and the night was coming.<br/></p>
<p>"I climb for you the peak of his infamy<br/>
That you may choose your fall if you cling to it.<br/>
No more for me unless you say more.<br/>
All you have left of a dream defends you:<br/></p>
<p>"The truth may be as evil an augury<br/>
As it was needful now for the two of us.<br/>
We cannot have the dead between us.<br/>
Tell me to go, and I go." — She pondered:<br/></p>
<p>"What you believe is right for the two of us<br/>
Makes it as right that you are not one of us.<br/>
If this be needful truth you tell me,<br/>
Spare me, and let me have lies hereafter."<br/></p>
<p>She gazed away where shadows were covering<br/>
The whole cold ocean's healing indifference.<br/>
No ship was coming. When the darkness<br/>
Fell, she was there, and alone, still gazing.<br/></p>
<p><br/><br/><br/></p>
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