Immortality

- Susan Mitchell

Age cannot reach me where the veils of God
Have shut me in,
For me the myriad births of stars and suns
Do but begin,
And here how fragrantly there blows to me
The holy breath,
Sweet from the flowers and stars and hearts of men.
From life and death.

We are not old, O heart, we are not old,
The breath that blows
The soul aflame is still a wandering wind
That comes and goes;
And the stirred heart with sudden raptured life
A moment glows.

A moment here--a bulrush’s brown head
In the grey rain,
A moment there--a child drowned and a heart
Quickened with pain;
The name of Death, the blue deep heaven, the scent
Of the salt sea,
The spicy grass, the honey robbed
From the wild bee.

Awhile we walk the world on its wide roads
And narrow ways,
And they pass by, the countless shadowy troops
Of nights and days;
We know them not, O happy heart,
For you and I
Watch where within a slow dawn lightens up
Another sky.