Dearest, when I left your side, <br />I stood a moment, hesitating, <br />And plunged. The boiling tide <br />Of darkness took me, and down I went <br />Swift as a bird with folded wing, <br />And upward sent <br />The bubbles of my vital breath <br />That shuddered from my secret deeps <br />To freedom and light; <br />Then, dimly, on my sight <br />Opened the still abode of living death. <br />Amid the mire, <br />In which invisibly sightless horror creeps, <br />Sat, each intent on his own woe, <br />The host that burns with inward fire, <br />Crowded like monuments of memorial stone <br />Beneath a pitchy sky <br />Where even the flash of tempest dare not show, <br />Yet each of them alone; <br />And each was I. <br /> <br />II <br /> <br />Breathless I struggled up, <br />As if the gloom had arms to clutch at me <br />And drag and hold, <br />Until the daylight’s gold <br />Shook faintly above my dizzy head <br />And parted suddenly, that I might see <br />The sky, a sheltering cup <br />Of hopeful azure, and your eyes of blue, <br />One promise and yet two <br />Of harbouring bliss; <br />And your lips parted and said, <br />“Shall not we twain <br />Find joy upon joy on earth <br />Together and see, <br />In the kinship of all that has birth <br />From the mutual reach of desire, <br />A joy beyond this, <br />A fire at the heart of the fire?” <br />And we clung till our spirit was free <br />As the flame of a kiss. <br /> <br />III <br /> <br />So we soared and the earth fell away, and the region of night <br />Was melted in limitless day of ineffable light <br />Till the myriad souls of the dead were united as we, <br />Themselves, and yet merged in the spread of an infinite sea <br />The joy that is life, and around us, below and above, <br />The One that all lovers have found, our eternity, Love.<br /><br />John Le Gay Brereton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-explorer-3/
