Across a Gaudy Room

Across a gaudy room
I looked and saw his face.
Beneath the sapless palm-trees, in the gloom
Of the distressing place,
Where everyone sat tired.
Where talk itself grew stale.
Where, as the day began to fail,
No guest had just the power required
To rise and go: I strove with my disgust;
But at the sight of him my eyes were fired
To give one glance, as though they must
Be sociable with what they found of fair
And free and simple in a chamber where
Life was so base.

As when a star is lit
In the dull evening sky,
Another soon leaps out to answer it,
Even so the bright reply
Came sudden from his eyes.
By all but me unseen;
Since then the distance that between
Our lives unalterably lies
Is but a darkness, intimate and still,
Which messages may traverse, where replies
May sparkle from afar, until
The night becomes a mystery made clear
Between two souls forbidden to draw near:
Creator, why?