THE LOOPHOLE

I shall not come when thou wilt call,

        For when thou call'st I am with thee.

        When I think of thee, within me

Thyself art, and thy thought self’s all.

Thy presence is thy absence drest

        In thy body that hides thy soul.

Tis in me that thou art possessed,

        'Tis in my thoughts that thou art whole.

Outside thee, given to time and space,

        Thy body, thy mere loss to me,

Partakes of change and age and place?

        Belongs to other laws than thee.

In my dream of thee nothing changes

        Thyself to other than thou art.

        Thy corporal presence is that part

Of thee that thee from thee estranges.

Therefore call me, but await not.

        Thy voice, summed to my dreaming thee,

Shall put new beauty on that thought

        Of thy body that dwells in me.

Thy voice heard from afar shall bring

        Nearer to me thy presence dreamed.

        Brighter and clearer than it seemed

It grow'th in my imagining.

Then call no more. Thy voice twice heard

        Along the real space would be

        Too near now to reality.

Thy second voice were thy first blurred.

Call me but once. I close mine eyes

        And let the second call be dreamed,

        Thy body's vision lightly gleamed

On my seeing memory of thy cries.

The rest, eyes shut lest thou appear.

        Shall be thy clear continuance

        In my dream's constancy askance.

Keep far, keep silent, come not here,

For thou wouldst come too near for sight

        And out of my thoughts step to thee,

        Putting on thy dreamed body in me

        (Thy body's form‑dream infinite)

        Thy limit, visibility.