The Happy Marriage and Other Poems/The Tomb of the Abbess of Tours
THE TOMB OF THE ABBESS OF TOURS
Over the hills and very far away,
Far, far away and centuries ago,
She was so young, so swift to love, so slow—
Waiting the lover perfect every way—
To guess the thing was love and would not stay.
She never thought to die. She did not know
Her spring, put off, forestalled, would never blow.
She never doubted there should come the day.
She doubts not now. Her mouth that wears the stone
Soft as the subtle fashion of the flesh
Has smiled eight hundred years for that dear One,
That perfect lover humbled for her sake,
And her two eyes that lift beneath the lash,
Could he not kiss them even now awake?