| I When you, that at this moment are to me Dearer than words on paper, shall depart, And be no more the warder of my heart, Whereof again myself shall hold the key; And be no more — what now you seem to be — The sun, from which all excellences start In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart Of moonlight, even, splintered on the sea; I shall remember only of this hour — And weep somewhat, as now you see me weep — The pathos of your love, that, like a flower, Fearful of death yet amorous of sleep, Droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed, The wind whereon its petals shall be laid. II That love at length should find me out and bring This fierce and trivial brow unto dust, Is, after all, I confess, but just; There is a subtle beauty in this thing, A wry perfection; wherefore now let sing All voices how into my throat is thrust, Unwelcome as Death's own, Love's bitter crust, All criers proclaim it, and all steeples ring. This being done, there let the matter rest. What more remains is neither here nor there. That you requite me not is plain to see; Myself your slave herein have I confessed: Thus far, indeed, the world may mock at me; But if I suffer, it is my own affair. III Love is not blind. I see with single eye Your ugliness and other women's grace. I know the imperfection of your face, — The eyes too wide apart, the brow too high For beauty. Learned from earliest youth am I In loveliness, and cannot so erase Its letters from my mind, that I may trace You faultless, I must love until I die. More subtle is the sovereignty of love: So am I caught when I say, "Not fair," 'Tis but as if I said, "Not here — not there — Not risen — not writing letters." Well I know What is this beauty men are babbling of; I wonder only why they prize it so. IV I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring. Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes. Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime. V I pray you if you love me, bear my joy A little while, or let me weep your tears; I, too, have seen the quavering fate destroy Your destiny's bright spinning — the dull shears Meeting not neatly, chewing at the thread, — Nor can you well be less aware how fine, How staunch as wire, and how unwarranted Endures the golden fortune that is mine. I pray you for this day at least, my dear, Fare by my side, that journey in the sun; Else must I turn me from the blossoming year And walk in grief the way that you have gone Let us go forth together to the spring: Love must be this, if it be anything. VI Pity me not because the light of day At close of day no longer walks the sky; Pity me not for beauties passed away From field and thicket as the year goes by; Pity me not the waning of the moon, Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea, Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon, And you no longer look with love on me. This have I known always: Love is no more Than the wide blossom which the wind assails, Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore, Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales: Pity me that the heart is slow to learn What the swift mind beholds at every turn. VII Sometimes when I am wearied suddenly Of all the things that are the outward you, And my gaze wanders ere your tale is through To webs of my own weaving, or I see Abstractedly your hands about your knee And wonder why I love you as I do, Then I recall, "Yet Sorrow thus he drew"; Then I consider, "Pride thus painted he." Oh, friend, forget not, when you fain would note In me a beauty that was never mine, How first you knew me in a book I wrote, How first you loved me for a written line: So are we bound till broken is the throat Of Song, and Art no more leads out the Nine. VIII Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word! Give back my book and take my kiss instead. Was it my enemy or my friend I heard, "What a big book for such a little head!" Come, I will show you now my newest hat, And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink! Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that. I never again shall tell you what I think. I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly; You will not catch me reading any more: I shall be called a wife to pattern by; And some day when you knock and push the door, Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy, I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me. IX Here is a wound that never will heal, I know, Being wrought not of a dearness and a death, But of a love turned ashes and the breath Gone out of beauty; never again will grow The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath Its friendly weathers down, far underneath Shall be such bitterness of an old woe. That April should be shattered by a gust, That August should leveled by a rain, I can endure, and that the lifted dust Of man should settle to the earth again; But that a dream can die, will be a thrust Between my ribs forever of hot pain. X I shall go back again to the bleak shore And build a little shanty on the sand, In such a way that the extremest band Of brittle seaweed will escape my door But by a yard or two; and nevermore Shall I return to take you by the hand; I shall be gone to what I understand, And happier than I ever was before. The love that stood a moment in your eyes, The words that lay a moment on your tongue, Are one with all that in a moment dies, A little under-said and over-sung. But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies Unchanged from what they were when I was young. XI Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find The roots of last year's roses in my breast; I am as surely riper in my mind As if the fruit stood in the stalls confessed. Laugh at the unshed leaf, say what you will, Call me in all things what I was before, A flutterer in the wind, a woman still; I tell you I am what I was and more. My branches weigh me down, frost cleans the air, My sky is black with small birds bearing south; Say what you will, confuse me with fine care, Put by my word as but an April truth — Autumn is no less on me, that a rose Hugs the brown bough and sighs before it goes. |
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