The night weighs heavy; yellow gleams the lamp
And sheds its light on her who broods and sits:
Her face recast by that sharp-sunken stamp
With which fate crushes, remoulding what it hits.

The feeble rays pick out her head and hair
Her arms and shoulders; crowding shadows lie
About her knees and feet; thus in her chair
Nightly she sits; and I stand helpless by.

And nightly does she brood and stare, aghast
That still another day has ranged itself
Behind its brethren of the unmoving past.
Thus books are ranged upon a dusty shelf

And stand in line as they were put away.
At the near end some books are red, some green,
Beyond, all look alike and blend in grey
And are no longer -- as if they had not been.

I turn away to walk; but she sits still
And stares ahead and bends a shorthem[2] brow.
And suddenly I feel with a dull thrill
How forward ploughs the knife-edge of this now

Which is and is not and which yet divides
What was and what will be; a hard light[3]
Rests on the past; but with long hurried strides[4]
Arrives the future through the mantling night,

Like a cloaked traveller throwing off his disguise
As he comes near the ever[5] narrowing gate
Through which he glides and slips[6] at the precise
And unmissed moment ere it is too late.

And stands transformed as he had never stirred[7]
While new arrivals press him to the rear
When soon his shape becomes confused and blurred
Till he is but a fragment of some year.

Still[8] do I waltz and still, unmoved, she sits
Illumed by the dimly yellow light
And moment after moment comes and flits
And adds its portion to the heavy load of night.