You remained on the roadway behind me
But the hymn of my steps remains:
A golden sheaf's reflection,
A meadow of cranes upon cranes!
I stumble on cloud as on stone.
I stumble on my day as on sin.
I am borne between blue and a star
By your innocent, stammering grin.
Because you once were and shone tearful
And leaned on a painted wave's form
And breathed, as you sailed over yonder,
An invisible shore into storm,
As they pound toward the shore and toward you
(Who are held in its far gold gleam)
My days are poured out for me, pounding
The beat of your cherished dream.
Splendors and meaningless silence!
Splendors and nameless sky!
Unique in the blue is the hour
That is shuttered away from my eye.
Alone to the stone and the threshold
That chanted your hymn to the age
Like a gold-bearing letter they guide me,
Like a name on your very first page.