Classic Poem

Believe me, there is enough strength left in those
Dead syllables we buried so frantically
A year ago, to make the thought of a rose
Or a river with lights press like an agony,
Go like a spear through my blood, come on me
Like a weight of frozen fire! ... And yet we suppose
We can shut our teeth and forget! ... And that bravery
Glitters an instant, and then as instantly goes.

For he whom love has troubled can never quite
Lock out the proud insistence of the sound
Her feet give: something vigilantly white
Has marked his way and shadowed him and bound
His forehead with a cord of terrible light,
His throat with strings that shall not be unwound.