We make our meek adjustments,
Contented with such random consolations
As the wind deposits
In slithered and too ample pockets.

For we can still love the world, who find
A famished kitten on the step, and know
Recesses for it from the fury of the street,
Or warm torn elbow coverts.

We will sidestep, and to the final smirk
Dally the doom of that inevitable thumb
That slowly chafes its puckered index toward us,
Facing the dull squint with what innocence
And what surprise!

And yet these fine collapses are not lies
More than the pirouettes of any pliant cane;
Our obsequies are, in a way, no enterprise.
We can evade you, and all else but the heart:
What blame to us if the heart live on.

The game enforces smirks; but we have seen
The moon in lonely alleys make
A grail of laughter of an empty ash can,
And through all sound of gaiety and quest
Have heard a kitten in the wilderness.

Upon my lips she laid her touch divine,
And merry speech and careless laughter died;
She fixed her melancholy eyes on mine,
And would not be denied.

I saw the west wind loose his cloudlets white
In flocks, careering through the April sky;
I could not sing though joy was at its height,
For she stood silent by.

I watched the lovely evening fade away;
A mist was lightly drawn across the stars;
She broke my quiet dream, I heard her say,
"Behold your prison bars!

"Earth's gladness shall not satisfy your soul,
This beauty of the world in which you live;
The crowning grace that sanctifies the whole,
That, I alone can give."

I heard and shrank away from her afraid;
But still she held me and would still abide;
Youth's bounding pulses slackened and obeyed,
With slowly ebbing tide.

"Look thou beyond the evening star," she said,
"Beyond the changing splendors of the day;
Accept the pain, the weariness, the dread,
Accept and bid me stay!"

I turned and clasped her close with sudden strength,
And slowly, sweetly, I became aware
Within my arms God's angel stood at length,
White-robed and calm and fair.

And now I look beyond the evening star,
Beyond the changing splendors of the day,
Knowing the pain He sends more precious far,
More beautiful, than they.