Sickness: Sickness
Sickness
From New Poems (1916).
Waving slowly before me, pushed into the dark,
Unseen my hands explore the silence, drawing the bark
Of my body slowly behind.
Nothing to meet my fingers but the fleece of night
Invisible blinding my face and my eyes! What if in their flight
My hands should touch the door!
What if I suddenly stumble, and push the door
Open, and a great grey dawn swirls over my feet, before
I can draw back!
What if unwitting I set the door of eternity wide
And am swept away in the horrible dawn, am gone down the tide
Of eternal hereafter!
Catch my hands, my darling, between your breasts.
Take them away from their venture, before fate wrests
The meaning out of them.