The Quiet Hour

When the hour is hushed and you lie still,

So quiet is the room about me

It seems perhaps that you are gone,

Sunken to a marble sleep.

I hear no sound; my quiet will,

Passive as the lambs at rest,

Stirs not the quaint forgetfulness

But only murmurs, “Sleep is strange!”

The low moon at the lattice going

Rests no more quietly than you at peace.

Hushed is the candle; the hour is late,

And I, poor witness of extreme change,

I think perhaps then heaven opens

Like the unfolding of your hand in sleep—

Your cold white hand—to close again—

While I sit staring at the marble gate.