It was raining softly and we sat within a room with pictures all about—a
woman, fresh and young, and I—and trembled. The beauty and the
loveliness of her were dawning in me. And something of myself that had
not been took being. I loved. There was nothing as beautiful as her
lips. There was nothing as beautiful as her eyes. There was nothing then
in all the world as beautiful as she I loved. It was my soul. Restless
as a song it reached from day to day to light new moments with its
melody. Ever and forever it went singing, “I will live beyond the stars.
I will live beyond the mystery of flesh. When the woman who awakened me
is turned to dust I will live as now and sing as now.”
I have always wondered what became of me when I went back to earth.
Today I know.
It was so precious and so fierce. I loved so. I had but to look on her
and taste of immortality.
Beside it I have stood and listened to its cries. I have noted how it
struggled. In the night I have repeated its brave words, “Ever and
forever.” I have nursed it from her lips. I have given it to feed upon
her breast.
It would not live. I loved so, I loved so—and yet I ceased to love.
There is one thing in the world that will not live. There is one thing
mortal more than life. It is the beauty of which poets sing. Beauty dies
in every moment. It is mortal with the hours. It flashes and it dies. It
leaps and dies. It sings and dies.