Once in a smoking-car, I saw a scene

That made my blood stand still....

While the sun smouldered in a great ravine,

And I, with elbow on the window-sill,

Was watching the dim ember of the west,

Half-heard, but poignant as a bell

For fire, there came a moan; the voice of one in hell.

I turned. Across the car were two young men,

Yet hardly more than boys,

French by their look, and brothers,

And one was moaning on the other’s breast.

His face was hid away. I could not tell

What words he said, half English and half French. I only knew

Both men were suffering, not one but two.

And then that face came into view,

Gaunt and unshaved, with shadows and wild eyes,A face of madness and of desolation. And his cries,

For all his mate could do,

Rang out, a shrill and savage noise,

And tears ran down the stubble of his cheek.

The other face was younger, clean and sad

With the manful stricken beauty of a lad

Who had intended always to be glad.

.... The touch of his compassion, like a mother’s,

Pitied the madman, soothed him and caressed.

And then I heard him speak,

In a low voice: “Mon frÈre, mon frÈre!

Calme-toi! Right here’s your place.”

And, opening his coat, he pressed

Upon his heart the wanderer’s face

And smoothed the tangled hair.

After a moment peaceful there,

The maniac screamed—struck out and fell

Across his brother’s arm. Love could not quell

His anger. Wrists together high in air

He rose and with a yell

Brought down his handcuffs toward his brother’s face—

But his hands were pinned below his waist,By a burly, silent sheriff, and some hideous thing was bound

Around his arms and feet

And he was laid upon the narrow seat.

And then that sound,

That moan

Of one forsaken and alone!

“Seigneur! Le createur du ciel et de la terre!

Forgotten me! Forgotten me!”

.... And when the voice grew weak

The brother leaned again, embraced

The huddled body. But a shriek

Repulsed him: “Non! DÉtache-moi! I don’t care

For you. Non! Tu es l’homme qui m’a trahi!

Non! Tu n’es pas mon frÈre!”

But as often as that stricken mind would fill

With the great anguish and the rush of hate,

The boy, his young eyes older, older,

Would curve his shoulder

To the other’s pain and hold that haunted face close to his face

And say: “O wait!

You will know me better by and by.Mon pauvre petit, be still!

Right here’s your place.”

.... The gleam! and then the blinded stare,

The cry:

“Non, tu n’es pas mon frÈre!”

I saw myself, myself, as blind

As he. And something smothers

My reason. And I do not know my brothers....

But every day declare:

“Non, tu n’es pas mon frÈre!”

But in the outcome, I can see....

Closer than any brother

Shall they be to one another

And to me,

Closer than mother, father, daughter, son,

O closer than a lover shall they be,

When madness like a storm shall roll

Away, leaving illumination. Within everyone

The nearness has begun

Toward some loved life and toward the soulPerceived therein: the elemental ache to be made whole

With beauty and with love.—O I have ached and longed in the embrace

Of one I love to be undone

Of differences, to yield and run

Within the very blood and being of my dear,

One body and one face,

One spirit in all space,

Mingled and indissoluble. And I have felt a mortal tear

Smart on my lids, when I had been so near

To Celia that I knew not which was I,

Yet the day returned between us and the sky

Held distances that were not clear

To us and we were two again that had been almost one.

A mother yields herself to enter

Her child, who nestles close and sleeps

With all his wisdom pressed

For comfort to her breast.

I can remember my relinquishment

Of consciousness and care,Almost of life, upon my mother’s heart—the great content

Of being there.

And then I loved a starry boy of three,

Who looked about him, smiled and took to me,

Held out his arms and chose me among men

For his companion, to confide

His smiles in and to be

At ease with. Closely by my side

He sat and touched the world, to see

If it were solid and worth touching. When he died,

I too was dead ... and yet I hear him say,

Laughing within my heart today:

“Lo, being you,

And having lived your years, this will I do,

And this, and this!”

I have my boy again.

I greet him nearer than a kiss.

And so, from birth to death, out of confusion

The secret creeps

Across the deeps

From its eternal centreIn the soul.

Communion is the cause and the conclusion

And the unfailing sacrament

Not only of the mystical frequenter

Of temples, where the body of the dead

Creates divine

The living body through the bread

And wine,

But God discovers and discovers

His beauty in all lovers.

And, to make His beauty whole,

Body and body, soul and soul, combine

His one identity with yours and mine.

I know a fellow in a steel-mill who, intent

Upon his labours and his happiness, had meant

In his own wisdom to be blest,

Had made his own unaided way

To schooling, opportunity,

Success. And then he loved and married. And his bride,

After a brief year, died.

I went to him to see

If I might comfort him. The comfort came to me.

“David,” I said, “under the temporary ache

There is unwonted nearness with the dead.”

I felt his two hands take

The sentence from me with a grip

Forged in the mills. He told me that his tears were shed

Before her breath went. After that, instead

Of grief, she came herself. He felt her slip

Into his being like a miracle, her lip

Whispering on his, to slake

His need of her.—“And in the night I wake

With wonder and I find my bride

And her embrace there in our bed,

Within my very being, not outside!

.... We have each other more, much more,”

He said, “now than before.

This very moment while I shake

Your hand, my friend,

Not only I,

But she is touching you—and laughs with me because I cried

For her.... People would think me crazy if I told.But something in what you said made me bold

To let you meet my bride!”

It was not madness. David’s eye

Was clear and open-seeing.

His life

Had faced in death and understood in his young wife,

As I when Celia died,

The secret of God’s being.