The crystal bed of agony, The tile-white room, Went spinning backward into space; The tense and intent surgeon's face That had forgotten mirth Stayed longest -- and then Richard moved With time instead of watching it go by As we do here on earth. The cold river of the winds Washed clean his mind, And such a silence fell He withered in the soundless hell Of space; and then the sun's red face Rimmed half the valley of the sky, Where tongued heat-lilies bloomed, And like an albatross at sea A silent asteroid skimmed by. Up, with a celestial stride That passed the van of light, Death's thought-swift horses ran Into the sterile frontiers of the sky Where starless night began, A bound of eyeless light, Where meteors like crystals In their angled shapes blew by. And then it seemed A hawk-faced angel Laid him on an island That he dreamed to be, And with a cold draught of pinions passed, And he awoke beneath The fending branches of a tree. It was a winter's night, And all around him lay a landscape stark, But for one square-eyed window light -- Towards this he went, And heard a frantic welcome in the bark Of hounds he used to know, Then their cool muzzles in his hands, While a great door stood wide And shed the blood of firelight on the snow. "Richard," his father's voice cried, "Come in! My son, my son!" Then both his hands -- Then down a hall With pictures of the past turned to the wall, Into a long room, where by the fire With love upon her eyes Without desire. And then a child that he had loved in youth, Filled all his arms With a delightful welcome, passionately mild, And as a drowning man tied to a mast Might see the little boat put off from shore, His mother came and cried, "Oh, Dick, come home at last!" And thus he knew That he need never leave them any more. |