Amy Levy: Christopher Found

Amy Levy

(1861-1889)

Christopher Found

I

At last; so this is you, my dear!

How should I guess to find you here?

So long, so long, I sought in vain

In many cities, many lands,

With straining eyes and groping hands;

The people marvelled at my pain.

They said: “But sure, the woman’s mad;

What ails her, we should like to know,

That she should be so wan and sad,

And silent through the revels go?”

They clacked with such a sorry stir!

Was I to tell? were they to know

That I had lost you, Christopher?

Will you forgive me for one thing?

Whiles, when a stranger came my way,

My heart would beat and I would say :

” Here’s Christopher!” –then lingering

With longer gaze, would turn away

Cold, sick at heart. My dear, I know

You will forgive me for this thing.

It is so very long ago

Since I have seen your face–till now;

Now that I see it–lip and brow,

Eyes, nostril, chin, alive and clear;

Last time was long ago; I know

This thing you will forgive me, dear.

 

II

There is no Heaven–This is the best;

O hold me closer to your breast;

Let your face lean upon my face,

That there no longer shall be space

Between our lips, between our eyes.

I feel your bosom’s fall and rise.

O hold me near and yet more near;

Ah sweet ; I wonder do you know

How lone and cold, how sad and drear,

Was I a little while ago;

Sick of the stress, the strife, the stir;

But I have found you, Christopher.

 

III

If only you had come before!

(This is the thing I most deplore)

A seemlier woman you had found,

More calm, by courtesies more bound,

Less quick to greet you, more subdued

Of appetite; of slower mood.

But ah! you come so late, so late!

This time of day I can’t pretend

With slight, sweet things to satiate

The hunger-cravings. Nay, my friend,

I cannot blush and turn and tremble,

Wax loth as younger maidens do.

Ah, Christopher, with you, with you,

You would not wish me to dissemble?

 

IV

So long have all the days been meagre,

With empty platter, empty cup,

No meats nor sweets to do me pleasure,

That if I crave–is it over-eager,

The deepest draught, the fullest measure,

The beaker to the brim poured up?

 

V

Shelley, that sprite from the spheres above,

Says, and would make the matter clear,

That love divided is larger love;–

We’ll leave those things to the bards, my dear.

For you never wrote a verse, you see;

And I–my verse is not fair nor new.

Till the world be dead, you shall love but me,

Till the stars have ceased, I shall love but you.

 

EPILOGUE

Thus ran the words; or rather, thus did run

Their purport. Idly seeking in the chest

(You see it yonder), I had found them there:

Some blotted sheets of paper in a case,

With a woman’s name writ on it: “Adelaide.”

Twice on the writing there was scored the date

Of ten years back; and where the words had end

Was left a space, a dash, a half-writ word,

As tho’ the writer minded, presently

The matter to pursue.

I questioned her,

That worthy, worthy soul, my châtelaine,

Who, nothing loth, made answer.

There had been

Another lodger ere I had the rooms,

Three months gone by–a woman.

“Young, sir ? No.

Must have seen forty if she’d seen a day!

A lonesome woman; hadn’t many friends;

Wrote books, I think, and things for newspapers.

Short in her temper–eyes would flash and flame

At times, till I was frightened. Paid her rent

Most regular, like a lady.

Ten years back,

They say (at least Ann Brown says), ten years back

The lady had a lover. Even then

She must have been no chicken.

Three months since

She died. Well, well, the Lord is kind and just.

I did my best to tend her, yet indeed

It’s bad for trade to have a lodger die.

Her brother came, a week before she died:

Buried her, took her things, threw in the fire

The littered heaps of paper.

Yes, the sheets,

They must have been forgotten in the chest;–

I never knew her name was Adelaide.”

 

Amy Levy poetry

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