Classic Poem

I.

Once more! And can I mix the past and present
 Close in a single cup of claspéd hands,
Into a single grasp compress the pleasant
 Old memories, the voices of lost lands,
Into a single glance hurl all the passion
 That should have been, that is to be no more,
Then say goodbye to you in common fashion
 And move to meet the lone waves' hollow roar?
Once more to see you—then—I must be dreaming—
  My Lady of the rosebands and the bays,
My sweet hair still divinely downward streaming,
  My dimple, and my soft caressing ways—
It is not true? to-morrow I shall wake,
And off my heart the accursed nightmare shake!

II.

Once more to bring to mind the green old places,
 And songs and dreams and tenderness recall,
As in one flash to see my sonnets' faces
 In your face, then a long farewell to all;
Sweet eyes … sweet lips … no time for numeration
 Have I, I leave a dainty list behind,—
One gaze, one second in the singer's station
 With vision clear, the next a poet blind;
Once more to feel the summer thrill flow through me,
 Then winter—winter—winter—and the dark,
The last time at the sunrise to renew me,
 To the old sweet melody once more to hark,
Once more—once more—then never, love, again,
But one long Arctic solitude of pain.