In Memoriam - Olivia Susan Clemens

by Mark Twain

　　Shut from the troubled world, a nameless hamlet drowsed.

　　Hard by, apart, a temple stood;

　　And strangers from the outer world

　　Passing, noted it with tired eyes,

　　And seeing, saw it not:

　　A glimpse of its fair form--an answering momentary thrill--

　　And they passed on, careless and unaware.They could not know the cunning of its make;

　　They could not know the secret shut up in its heart;

　　Only the dwellers of the hamlet knew;

　　They knew that what seemed brass was gold;

　　What marble seemed, was ivory;

　　The glories that enriched the milky surfaces--

　　The trailing vines, and interwoven flowers,

　　And tropic birds a-wing, clothed all in tinted fires--

　　They knew for what they were, not what they seemed:

　　Encrustings all of gems, not perishable splendours of the brush.

　　They knew the secret spot where one must stand--

　　They knew the surest hour, the proper slant of sun--

　　To gather in, unmarred, undimmed,

　　The vision of the fane in all its fairy grace,

　　A fainting dream against the opal sky.And more than this. They knew

　　That in the temple's inmost place a spirit dwelt,

　　Made all of light!

　　For glimpses of it they had caught

　　Beyond the curtains when the priests

　　That served the altar came and went.All loved that light and held it dear

　　That had this partial grace;

　　But the adoring priests alone who lived

　　By day and night submerged in its immortal glow

　　Knew all its power and depth, and could appraise the loss

　　If it should fade and fail and come no more.All this was long ago--so long ago!The light burned on; and they that worshipped it,

　　And they that caught its flash at intervals and held it dear,

　　Contented lived in its secure possession. Ah,

　　How long ago it was!And then when they

　　Were nothing fearing, and God's peace was in the air,

　　And none was prophesying harm,

　　The vast disaster fell:

　　Where stood the temple when the sun went down

　　Was vacant desert when it rose again!Ah yes! 'Tis ages since it chanced!

　　So long ago it was,

　　That from the memory of the hamlet-folk the Light has passed--

　　They scarce believing, now, that once it was,

　　Or if believing, yet not missing it,

　　And reconciled to have it gone.Not so the priests! Oh, not so

　　The stricken ones that served it day and night,

　　Adoring it, abiding in the healing of its peace:

　　They stand, yet, where erst they stood

　　Speechless in that dim morning long ago;

　　And still they gaze, as then they gazed,

　　And murmur, 'It will come again;

　　It knows our pain--it knows--it knows--

　　Ah surely it will come again.S.L.C.LAKE LUCERNE, August 18, 1897.