REMAIN, for me, chaste, unapproached, unstirred, Never from me shall you hear any word Asking that you should give me what I give. To-day I speak to you, but even to-day You shall not know it is you to whom I say, I love you and shall love you while I live. Once in these years my lips have touched your lips: O will-benumbing sweetness! -- so one sips Timidly a magic, an immortal wine, Too strong for human bodies, only to try, Saying that if I die one can but die, But if I live that dangerous joy was mine. Now move no footstep from your place, do not Repeat that moment, nor by any jot Of speech, or touch of hand or glance of eye Show to me any more than common kindness, But go your lovely way in lovely blindness, You the still seen, the enraptured seèr I. For gathered flowers go limp, bright-dusted wings Of handled butterflies grow shabby things, The mistress once enjoyed becomes a woman -- Attentive, kindly, comforting, too near, Till what was magic is no more than dear -- So, knowing I am, I will not think you human. Some men love beauties they have found in books Or who from pictures with unfading looks Gaze out upon this changing fading life. I, you -- and thus; and I would have you be Ever the same and still remote from me, Only an image, neither lover nor wife. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: OVER THE MACKINAC by KAREN SWENSON ARABIA by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE THE SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX [APRIL 9, 1865] by HERMAN MELVILLE TO HIS DEAD BODY by SIEGFRIED SASSOON SONNET: 67 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SABBATH THOUGHTS by GRACE AGUILAR ON THE AMOROUS AND PATHETIC STORY OF ARCADIUS AND SEPHA by L. B. |