The Playmate

by Rudyard Kipling

　　

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She is not Folly, that I know. Her steadfast eyelids tell me so When, at the hour the lights divide, She steals as summonsed to my side. When, finger on the pursed lip In secret, mirthful fellowship, She, heralding new framed delights, Breathes, "This shall be a Night of Nights!" Then, out of Time and out of Space, Is built an Hour and a Place Where all an earnest, baffled Earth Blunders and trips to make us mirth; Whence from the trivial flux of Things, Rise inconceived miscarryings, Outrageous but immortal, shown, Of Her great love, to me alone.... She is not Wisdom, but, maybe, Wiser than all the Norns is She: And more than Wisdom I prefer To wait on Her, to wait on Her!

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