Classic Poem

Just that half-hour before you go to sleep,
Fold your tired hands together and repeat
All I have said to you of love today.
All that you can remember, I should say,
So many words and yet not all the same,
Still simple words and words that leapt like flame
Across the narrow gap between our hearts
And brutal words, strong, naked, stiff and stark,
Because our young love speaks in many ways.
… We are so young, we know not what to say
And yet the half-formed, ill-shaped words that fall
From untrained novice lips are musical
To untrained novice ears. If we are young
And say uncertainly what men have sung
In long dead years and still we do not know
All of love's arts, we'll be for ever so,
Untrained, unskilled, for this is far more sweet
Than love that treasures up and knows to keep
The secret arts of loving and being loved.