Classic Poem

Though you forget to love,
Love is a living thing —
An ill unmeasured comes
If you choke up the spring.

They sent me on a day
To fill an ancient well:
If there had been a house
None now remained to tell.

But all amid the grass
I found a myrtle spray
And a bitter scent of box
Rose up along the way.

A well — without a sweep
Nor was there left a curb;
A warped plank lay across
Half hid in struggling herb.

Deep down the water gleamed
A buried pane of blue
That cracked athwart like glass
At the first earth I threw.

And the first earth I threw —
It had the grave-clod's sound
And something seemed alive
That cried far underground!

But I began to sing
My gloomy thoughts to save;
The song became the croon
Of one who digs a grave.

I bent me to my task,
I hurled the brown earth in —
But suddenly around
There was a murmured din!

I lifted up mine eyes,
The heart within me sunk —
They all stood round about
Who ever there had drunk!

With asking looks they leaned,
" Give us to drink — we thirst! "
And then I learned that he
Who fills a well is cursed.

They were — and were not — ay,
They vanished as they came,
As though the noon should drop
Upon a candle-flame.

Sweet, though — you love no more,
Do not quite close your heart,
So that no place is mine,
Lest Ghosts of Memory start.