Classic Poem

Enigma

By what confusion of things hoped or feared
Did you become the wife of him who stands
So passionless beside you? What endeared,
Some day of Spring, his pale insensate hands
So much that you desired to feel their weight? …
I shall go mad if I dream long of this! …
I wonder if a shuddering “Too late!”
Breathed from your lips when first you took his kiss? …
All this was years ago. Now you are done,
Both of you, with the things you feared or dreamed.
Love, that wins seldom, this time has not won;
Love's bones now glimmer where his eyes once gleamed.
You will go on, the pair of you, till death
Ordains you have drawn enough of foolish breath.English