[[You are reading by a window]] [[You are coming down the stair]] [[You are smoothing out your pillow]] [[For his voice is still right there]] [[You are weighing out your sorrow]] [[You are waiting out tomorrow]] [[You are building in the air.]] You are reading by a window To a thousand other worlds Hold your prayer-book like a rainbow He is wearing gold and pearls He is waiting by the river Dear, why ever do you shiver? [[Would I smile at other girls?|And his smile is pure as pearl]] You are coming down the stairway And he should be standing there You are are listening in the archway For his voice hooked on the air For him to come in blue and gold To kneel before you in the cold [[So fresh and sweetly fair.]] You are laying out his pillow You are weighing down his eyes For a girl who wears the willow [[Has her duties and her prize|As your loss grows rich and strange.]] He will lie in stone at rest With his hands upon his breast [[And you'll lie there at his side.|You are smoothing out your sorrow]]For his voice is hanging there Like a banner long and red Hanging in the chapel fair To amuse the lying dead Like a nightingale's long note From the arches of its throat [[Like a grave that's lately fed.]]You are paying out your sorrow In a thousand holy lies You are laying in a long row [[All your girlish little sighs|So fresh and sweetly fair.]] You are marking a foundation Like a queen marks out her nation [[For a place to sing inside.|You are smoothing out your sorrow]] You are spinning out tomorrow As the years they crack and change You are carding out your sorrow You are weaving an exchange For your pain to rise in towers For your love to grow stone flowers [[As your loss grows rich and strange.]] You are building in the air Open doors to other worlds For your voice is hanging there Like a tapestry unfurled Like a bridge that is a knife Like a fire that was a wife [[Like a seed that's sunk in pearl.|Like a pearl that grows a forest]] You are singing sorrow's side Like a woman in a garden Where the marble years abide Where your flesh begins to harden There in fatty alabaster Lies your future lord and master Fold your heart around his pardon [[Or lie down and be his bride.|You are Building an Abbey for Lovers]] But his eyes are smiling windows To the hallways of the dead And the prayers of weeping widows [[Buzz and cluster round his head|Like a grave that's lately fed.]] For he's pure like pared-out paper Standing there like smiling vapour [[Like a story that's been read.]]Like an archway sunk in stone You are slicing up the light Like white butresses of bone [[Inside it shines burning bright|Like a grave that's lately fed.]] Carve your flesh with hooks of hair As your vaults carve up the air [[As you catch love in your sight.]] As your loss curves up in strangeness And you see through long light halls As you mark your doors with kindness And you build up where love falls As in green marble and porphyry You mark the world you want to see [[You are free within your walls.|A wall has open windows]]For he bowed his head so sweetly To your hands so soft and small Gave his heart tied up so neatly That you cannot let it fall You'll close it up in blue and gold So none may see how it's grown cold [[Within its shining wall.|A wall has open windows]]But a wall has open windows And love seeps like honey through Like golden songs and cymbals And a casket gold and blue So box up every shining heart A lover still will take your part [[A story will climb through.|You are Building an Abbey for Lovers]]And fattened with the smiling dead The stone grows up like webs of flesh You mark the sky in lines of lead Below the arches yawn and press And in the cloisters songs collect An echo chamber for love's sect [[Where truth is caught in stone's tight mesh.]]Like a story set in red ink Or a still face set in stone He's drained the cup of heaven's drink [[As sweet as honeycomb|For his voice is still right there]] He is waiting by the water Come across, he says, God's daughter [[But girl, leave that man alone.|You leave those dead alone]] As you set up lines of sight Held tight in nets of stone As you hold those true love's bite [[Has marked through to the bone|For his voice is still right there]] You lay your future on the altar Don't look back and never falter [[Girl, you leave those dead alone.|You leave those dead alone]]The dead have homes in shining tombs You build for lovers, sweet Doette A hive for love with many rooms Where wells of bright light fall and fret You close your doors to those untrue For you are building something new Where love and loss can rise and set [[You build for lovers, sweet Doette.|You are Building an Abbey for Lovers]] Where hair shirts and a tight stone wall Fall open in the name of love Where beauty comes down like a pall And song crests down from high above Where stone holds love in a bright net You build for lovers, sweet Doette [[You leave the dead, and learn to love.|You leave those dead alone]]