Eversoft (re-edited)

How else should God speak to man and man to God but Verse

and lofty lines of mind enough to lift a Father’s curse?

How soon and quick the heart descends

amid the flirty gay of morning tends

and all those daily eases of others’ vulgate sins.

Had I the power to rid them all

from glowing hearth and pictured wall

so ray it might redeem our fall,

think not a glinting, dying shine

be brief enough to outrun such crime.

For I, too, have sailed the seas of moon and star

and plumbed the depths of dark and far

to only want the earthy call her strong and steadfast arm.

First love she, and also He – should I have such capacity –

to bless a stone unmoving true: be brave, weak pulse,

and prune the vining-grew our twined eternity.

Enduring me she has and shall,

through flaming pride and thoughts afoul

quiet and patient as the grave

from whose sting her faith may one day stave.

Know I no mountaintop a man can everlasting stay

and be not undone

nor can eyes behold the terror of the Son

but tarry here in weighty this

and keep the lowing vale in thoughtless bliss:

“This life is best in you, and He, dear Verse,

though few can ever know or will

the eversoft feet our intricate universe.”

: For Sarah, my wife

Tristan and Isolde, Jean Delville