Classic Poem

Reading a poet's musing in his rhyme
Of feverish love, kindled by its own dearth,
That dies of surfeit, comes again to birth
In brief fantastic intervals of time;
I thought how love that draws a steadier breath,
Glows in the mind, sets pulsing in the blood,
Is not the frail creation of a mood,
Is plain as life, unqualified as death.

This love long seasoned, tried against the storm,
Not furnished with the trappings of romance,
Will still have power to quicken and grow warm
Beyond the momentary circumstance;
The promise kept, the long tryst falsely broken,
The wrong look given or the right word spoken.

II

Let us be glad that we are done with these,
And walk a rough earth, share a simple roof,
And do not scorn the texture of the woof
That holds the warp of our day's tapestries.
Our love can know suspense, delight, and fear,
A width of longing widened by a day,
Made poignant for the heart too long away,
Or a quick suffocation, if too near.

There is a thunder in the closing door
That shuts the world out. When you turn to me
There is no need of speech. The liquid floor
Slides out beneath our feet, and we shall be
Lost, lost forever, on a long wave's crest,
Plunged in a starry darkness, breast to breast.