The Chosen

I rose, and looked; and turn she did;

I cried, “My heart revives!”

“Look more,” she said. I looked as bid;

Her face was all the five's.

All the five women, clear come back,

I saw in her – with her made one,

The while she drooped upon the track,

And her frail term seemed well-nigh run.

She'd half forgot me in her change;

“Who are you? Won't you say

Who you may be, you man so strange,

Following since yesterday?”

I took the composite form she was,

And carried her to an arbour small,

Not passion-moved, but even because

In one I could atone to all.

And there she lies, and there I tend,

Till my life's threads unwind,

A various womanhood in blend –

Not one, but all combined.