Asking, the look that follows what you keep —
Not rest, not prize: the found thing is not sleep.
You thought the finding ended what was due;
The finding only changed the work for you.
What comes to hand does not lie down and stay;
It lifts its eyes, and keep becomes the day.
As when the night is sealed on sleeping eyes,
A watcher sits, and nothing in them cries,
And still the hand is busy in the gloom,
And turns from off the brow what would consume —
So sits the found: not idle, not at ease.
The still is watch. The watch is what will please
No chest, no shelf. Recovered will not store.
It asks the hour. The hour must ask for more.
As when far ranks, the rumour not yet known,
Stand in the dust and watch the field alone,
Intent, unmoved, still doubtful of the sign,
Whether the peace still holds, or breaks the line —
So all that did not land with what you found
Waits on a motion not yet given ground,
Still as those ranks, and armed as they are still:
The heap remaining, ready for the will.
Then to the hearth the guest will bow his face,
And take the ash, the stranger's lowest place.
Silence. The room is held in that delay.
A speech must do, or it is not to say.
When speech at last is spent, it does not tell
The road behind; it names the law to dwell:
Sit, and the found thing's look becomes the keep;
Rise too soon, and the look goes back to sleep.
Do not make count of all that did not land
As if the sum could pay the look in hand.
The look is not a list. One stay will do.
The rest may wait, unnumbered, and still true,
Until the eyes you meet have had their due.
That is the labour waiting after you.
A thousand waits will not outrun this one;
The one you meet is where the keep is done.
Hold till the look has spent its honest claim.
You have the found. You have not finished fame.
Asking, the look that follows what you keep —
Is paid in watch, in sitting, not in sleep.
Keep by the watch. The eyes that finding wore
Are paid in staying. That is what they're for.