Should you lay ear to these lines, you will not catch a distant drum of hoofs, cavalcade of Arabians, passionate horde bearing down, destroying your citadel -- but maybe you'll hear -- should you just listen at the right place, hold it tenaciously, give your full blood to the effort -- maybe you'll note the start of a single step, always persistently faint, wavering in its movement between coming and going, never quite arriving, never quite passing -- and tell me which it is, you or I that you greet, searching a mutual being -- and whether two aren't closer for the labour of an ear? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON A LADY WHO FANCIED HERSELF A BEAUTY by CHARLES SACKVILLE (1637-1706) THE SENSITIVE PLANT by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY NO SONGS IN WINTER by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE BATTLE-SONG OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS by MICHAEL ALTENBURG A PRAYER FOR THE NEW YEAR by LAURA F. ARMITAGE AN EPITAPH ON A DUTCH CAPTAIN by PHILIP AYRES |