Classic Poem

We sat entwined an hour or two together
(how long I know not) underneath pine-trees
that rustled ever in the soft spring weather
stirr'd by the sole suggestion of the breeze:

we sat and dreamt that strange hour out together
fill'd with the sundering silence of the seas:
the trees moan'd for us in the tender weather
we found no word to speak beneath those trees.

but listen'd wondering to their dreamy dirges
sunder'd even then in voiceless misery;
heard in their boughs the murmur of the surges
saw the far sky as curv'd above the sea.

That noon seem'd some forgotten afternoon,
cast out from Life, where Time might scarcely be:
our old love was but remember'd as some swoon;
Sweet, I scarce thought of you nor you of me.

but, lost in the vast, we watched the minutes hasting
into the deep that sunders friend from friend;
spake not nor stirr'd but heard the murmurs wasting
into the silent distance without end:

so, whelm'd in that silence, seem'd to us as one
our hearts and all their desolate reverie,
the irresistible melancholy of the sun,
the irresistible sadness of the sea.