Portrait

Over and over I have heard,
As now I hear it,
Your voice harsh and light as the scratching of dry leaves over the hard ground,
Your voice forever assailed and shaken by the wind from the island
Of illustrious living and dead, that never dies down,
And bending at moments under the terrible weight of the perfect word,
Here in this room without fire, without comfort of any kind,
Reading aloud to me immortal page after page conceived in a mortal mind.
Beauty at such moments before me like a wild bright bird
Has been in the room, and eyed me, and let me come near it.

I could not ever nor can I to this day
Acquaint you with the triumph and the sweet rest
These hours have brought to me and always bring,—
Rapture, coloured like the wild bird’s neck and wing,
Comfort, softer than the feathers of its breast.

Always, and even now, when I rise to go,
Your eyes blaze out from a face gone wickedly pale;
I try to tell you what I would have you know,—
What peace it was; you cry me down; you scourge me with a salty flail;
You will not have it so.