Classic Poem

Remember kissing, haste of embrace,
The then too swimming voyage everywhere—
And so bent on return, all's still to see
And learn of: oh, the luxurious futures
We have tasted tastelessly,
Blunting the acute lips with love,
The like desire of another
To be newly baptized in the fresh flood
Of the Unknown.

Round us the flagging flies piqued dully:
Our moments given holiday to fret
On whiling wing, stupid of time
As we of who we were in this soft act
Before the liquid mirror
Of mutuality.

It was a wilful dark,
Sight put to large confusion
Because we would not credit
The littleness of our fond eyes.
So we have loved more greatly than seen.
Shall we not love again,
In this reduced revelation apprised
Of what was never there?

And the long lonely arms that stretch
From the back of the mind,
And the short lying legs that declare
Miles of prospective moments
To our still unventured step—
Shall these and all the loving parts
Be dead, reliques of frowardness?
Shall mouths not open but to speak not,
But in refusal to ourselves
Of outer comfort?

The love subsequent to love,
Less than the premature desire
Though than love not less,
The rampant years indeed belies.
Death-small is love—when vital senses
At last acquire the delicacy of death,
When love's wrought space becomes
A fine result of liberal measurement.
This remnant morsel has the sweetness
Of a first taste.

Remember kissing: did lips truly touch?
Or what were lips, if touching?
And what the love, if we loved?
If it was lips and loving, what were we?
Let us not think of that.
To read the greying story backwards
Brings tears of youth from eyes already dry—
A loss of eyes and sight, such moisture.
Let us not look,
Who in the agèd chapters have
An obligation to death dawning
Of not pretending yet to have lived.