Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/218

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Throughout them both. Their thickened tongues were dumb,The pretty words of star-lore undelivered,The pretty words that found no breath could come.
He sank into the stubble by her side,Leaving a blankness in the upper night;His lips leant in their urgency of prideTowards her eyes, that made the blackness bright.His lips spoke only to the reddened cheek,And settled to a long-denied delightUpon the goal they had not dared to seek.
There was a gasping silence on the crest,While the wind whined and the thin stars passed over;There was a gasping rapture in each breast,And her will bent as wind bends low the clover.And a flame rose to its magnificent noon,And a flame vanished. Each exalted loverFelt the mad ecstasy and the piercing tune
Of love higher than hills that brush the sky,Of love fiercer than suns that whiten space,Die in their high magnificence, yet dieTo a still radiance in the friendly placeThat seemed to promise higher ecstasyForever stamped on each beloved's face,Telling them: "This is immortality."
Unseen, while love's proud beacon flared and sweptAcross their hearts, a sudden sullen glowHad lifted over the hill beyond, and crept,Diminishing yet brightening, in slowAnd stately curving path so high, and thenBent back toward the dimness, slid belowThe unlit bulk of the huge hills again.

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