Classic Poem

Here at my window, in the waning light
Of afternoon, with serious bended head
You labor at a letter; as you write,
I wonder — can words say what should be said?
I wonder if the misspelled lines can hold
Anything of this rapt and dreaming face,
The delicate brow, the carven wavy gold,
The white neck bent in dim abstracted grace?
That lad in battle to whom your message flies —
I in my madness wish that he could share
This hour. No inky page of your replies
Could speak to him as speaks this gold-shot hair
To me who linger, near yet more afar
Than you, boy, can be, wheresoever you are.