| 8 | Now must we gather up and comprehend The volume of vicissitude, and take Account of loving, for each other's sake, And ask how love began and how will end (If there be any end of love, O friend Of my worst hours and best desires!) — and stake Our all upon the sweetness and the ache Of what men's stories and God's stars intend. You have my all: you are my all: you give, Out of your bounty and content of soul, The only strength that makes me fit to live — Since earth of spirit takes such heavy toll: Yet I, the weak, the faint, the fugitive, Stand here, an equal part of the great whole. |
[Laurence Housman]
Summer Night
Light, like a closing flower, covers to earth her herds,
Out of the world we only watch for the rise of moon;
Darker the twilight glimmers, dulls the warble of birds,
Over the silent field travels the night-jar's tune.
Here, at my side, so close that even your breath I hear,
Face and form that I love, now with the night made one,
Pray not for any star! Come not, O moon, for fear
Lest in thy light we lose our way ere the dream be done.
Touch, and clasp, and be close! Kiss, oh kiss, and be warm!
What is here, O beloved, so like a sea without sound?
Under the swathe at our feet, swifter than wings of storm,
Summer speeds on his way: Spring lies dead in the ground.
How like a closing flower, clasped by a sleeping bee,
Life folds over us now: — and here in the midst love lies.
O beloved, O flower of night, no morrow's moon shall we see:
Between a dusk and a day we meet, and at dawn Time dies!