Classic Poem

I had not known seven days could be seven years!

What sombre glory, what bright agony
Your absence brought to me
That lingering, breathless week of hopes and fears! —
Crowned by this frantic night
When I, now worm, now god, await my torment and delight.

At last through the relief of long-pent tears
Your loveliness appears.
At last I touch your finger tips
And worship them with trembling lips.
Lightly I brush your cheek,
And try to speak, —
And fail;
Because, to tell that tale
No words avail.

I had not known seven days could be seven years!

About your supple body my arms wind;
My fingers find
Your breast,
And sink to troubled rest.
My tongue
Worships your bare
Sweet shoulders, your unruly hair,
And reels divinely stung
By passion's drouth
And maddened by love's opiate, among
The poppies of your mouth.

Now suddenly,
As you lean trembling close to me,
Seeming to my unsubtle wit
Passion's true archetype and counterfeit, —
You utter three low words.
With three low words,
Quiet as slumbering birds,
Soft as a far heard vesper bell,
You toll my rapture's knell;
With three scarce whispered words,
Still as the earthward fall of giant bombs
That turn great cities into tombs,
You send my heaven crashing down to hell.
And, as I clasp you still, my joy and woe,
And crystal-gaze the future in your eyes,
There I behold pale, uncouth forms arise
With bar and rack and flame, our lives to sever.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

That was an hour ago. . . .
I had not known an hour could be for ever!