Sonnet

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no,Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fairThan small white single poppies,--I can bearThy beauty; though I bend before thee, thoughFrom left to right, not knowing where to go,I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor thereFind any refuge from thee, yet I swearSo has it been with mist,--with moonlight so.

Like him who day by day unto his draughtOf delicate poison adds him one drop moreTill he may drink unharmed the death of ten,Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffedEach hour more deeply than the hour before,I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men.

Time does not bring relief; you all have liedWho told me time would ease me of my pain!I miss him in the weeping of the rain;I want him at the shrinking of the tide;The old snows melt from every mountain-side,And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;But last year's bitter loving must remainHeaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

There are a hundred places where I fearTo go,--so with his memory they brim!And entering with relief some quiet placeWhere never fell his foot or shone his faceI say, "There is no memory of him here!"And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slowRising of the round moon, all throats that singThe summer through, and each departing wing,And all the nests that the bared branches show,And all winds that in any weather blow,And all the storms that the four seasons bring.

You go no more on your exultant feetUp paths that only mist and morning knew,Or watch the wind, or listen to the beatOf a bird's wings too high in air to view,--But you were something more than young and sweetAnd fair,--and the long year remembers you.

Not in this chamber only at my birth--When the long hours of that mysterious nightWere over, and the morning was in sight--I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firthI have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;And never shall one room contain me quiteWho in so many rooms first saw the light,Child of all mothers, native of the earth.

So is no warmth for me at any fireTo-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,And straighten back in weariness, and longTo gather up my little gods and go.

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,That you were gone, not to return again--Read from the back-page of a paper, say,Held by a neighbor in a subway train,How at the corner of this avenueAnd such a street (so are the papers filled)A hurrying man--who happened to be you--At noon to-day had happened to be killed,I should not cry aloud--I could not cryAloud, or wring my hands in such a place--I should but watch the station lights rush byWith a more careful interest on my face,Or raise my eyes and read with greater careWhere to store furs and how to treat the hair.