Aching and hot as my tired eyes be,
She is all that I wish to see.
And in my wearied and toil-dinned ear,
She says all things that I wish to hear.
Dusky and duskier grows the room,
Yet I see her best in the darker gloom.
When the winter eves are early and cold,
The firelight hours are a dream of gold.
And so I sit here night by night,
In rest and enjoyment of love’s delight.
But a knock on the door, a step on the stair
Will startle, alas, my love from her chair.
If a stranger comes, she will not stay:
At the first alarm she is off and away.
And he wonders, my guest, usurping her throne,
That I sit so much by myself alone.
Robert Bridges.