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Immortality

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 the 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 gray 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.

-- Susan Mitchell