Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
To CeliaWitter Bynner
T
Lips that had been so sure;
You still were mine but in eclipse,
Beside me but obscure.
For, Celia, where you lay,
Death, come to break your life apart,
Had led your love away.
You could no longer see.
But when you died, you heard me rise
And followed suddenly.
As I did on the dead,
You made of time a wedding-gown,
Of space a marriage-bed.
You married death in me,
Singing, “There is no other life,
No other God than we!”
In an old chamber softly lit
We heard the Chorale played,
And where you sat, an exquisite
Image of Life and lover of it,
Death sang a serenade.
And why you turned and smiled.
It was the white wings of a bird
Offering flight, and you were stirred
Like an adventurous child.
Uplift your countenance!”
Death bade me be your cavalier,
Called me to march and shed no tear
But sing to you and dance.
By those mysterious wings,
And when I heard that you were dead,
I could not weep. I sang instead,
As a true lover sings.
Today a room is softly lit;
I hear the Chorale played.
And where you come, an exquisite
Image of death and lover of it,
Life sings a serenade.
Love has been sung a thousand ways—
So let it be;
The songs ascending in your praise
Through all my days
Are three.
Your love was heaven’s blue,
And I, a bird, flew carolling
In ring on ring
Of you.
When God began to be,
And bound you strongly, right or wrong,
With his own thong,
To me.
That tops these two!—
You live forever, you who die,
I am not I
But you.