Robert Nichols

From “Two Songs of the Enigma”

For L. F. S.

NOW that the evenfall is come

And the sun fills the flaring trees,

And everything is mad, lit, dumb,

And in the pauses of the breeze

A far voice seems to call me home

To haven beyond woods and leas—

I feel again how sharply stings

The spell which binds our troubled dust

With hint of divine frustrated things;

The Soul’s deep doubt and desperate trust

That she at sunset shall find wings

To bear her beyond Now and Must.

So place your head against my head

And set your lips upon my lips,

That so I may be comforted;

For ah! the world so from me slips,

To the world-sunset I am sped

Where Soul and Silence come to grips

And Love stands sore-astonishèd.