I WONDER, can the night go
by;
Can this shot
arrow of travel fly
Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky
Of a
dawned to-morrow,
Without ever sleep delivering us
From each other, or loosing the
dolorous
Unfruitful sorrow!
What is it then that you can
see
That at the
window endlessly
You
watch the red sparks whirl and flee
And the night look
through?
Your
presence peering lonelily there
Oppresses me so, I can hardly bear
To
share the train with you.
You hurt my heart-beats’
privacy;
I wish I
could put you away from me;
I suffocate in this intimacy,
For all
that I love you;
How
I have longed for this night in the train,
Yet now every fibre of me cries
in pain
To God to remove
you.
But surely my soul’s best dream is
still
That one night
pouring down shall swill
Us away in an utter sleep, until
We are
one, smooth-rounded.
Yet closely bitten in to me
Is this armour of stiff reluctancy
That
keeps me impounded.
So, dear love, when another
night
Pours on us,
lift your fingers white
And strip me naked, touch me light,
Light,
light all over.
For
I ache most earnestly for your touch,
Yet I cannot move, however much
I would
be your lover.
Night after night with a blemish of
day
Unblown and
unblossomed has withered away;
Come another night, come a new night,
say
Will you pluck me apart?
Will you open the amorous,
aching bud
Of my
body, and loose the burning flood
That would leap to you
from my heart?