When Life Is Real

    We rode, we rode against the wind.
    The countless lights along the town
    Made the town blacker for their fire,
    And you were always looking down.

    To 'scape the blustering breath of March,
    Or was it for your mind's disguise?
    Still I could shut my eyes and see
    The turquoise color of your eyes.

    Surely your ermine furs were warm,
    And warm your flowing cloak of red;
    Was it the wild wind kept you thus
    Pensive and with averted head?

    I scarcely spoke, my words were swept
    Like winged things in the wind's despite.
    We rode, and with what shadow speed
    Across the darkness of the night!

    Without a word, without a look.
    What was the charm and what the spell
    That made one hour of life become
    A memory ever memorable?

    *        *        *        *        *

    All craft, all labor, all desire,
    All toil of age, all hope of youth
    Are shadows from the fount of fire
    And mummers of the truth.

    How bloodless books, how pulseless art,
    Vain kingly and imperial zeal,
    Vain all memorials of the heart!
    When Life itself is real!

    We traced the golden clouds of spring,
    We roved the beach, we walked the land.
    What was the world? A Phantom thing
    That vanished in your hand.

    You were as quiet as the sky.
    Your eyes were liquid as the sea.
    And in that hour that passed us by
    We lived eternally.