Classic Poem

She was herself, not his, not anything
That might be his or he might ever own,
Or ever think, or with much thinking bring
To words that may be spoken out and known;
And that dear image he had coined of her
To spend his love, and gilded with her head,
Was but the counterfeit love's pensioner
Should hoard for all his wealth when she was dead,

And all he knew of her was something less
Than what his hand could learn against her side,
Or what his mouth remembered from the press
Of her mute mouth. She had become the bride
Of something in his sense that understood
The touch of things, the moments of the blood.