The way you slipped a ribbon in a book to hold your place, Your toying with a wisp of hair while contemplating space, The startled look that cymbals of a storm would always bring, The way you left unfinished any song that you would sing; The roguish wink when someone caught you pushing back a yawn, Your serious demeanor when your chessmate took a pawn, The way you one time marked the rug with pointed toe to tell How far the maple stood between the arbor and the well; Your plucking at my coat sleeve when a crippled urchin passed, The way you helped a helpless bird into the longer grass, The genuinely tragic look you tried so hard to hide If I in earnest haste might push a vending hand aside; The way I saw your lips press tight then gradually part As you removed the tissue from a carmine-sugared heart -- All these are past and should grow dim with all such things in kind, And yet their fragile fragments clog the traffic of my mind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE MAUD MULLER by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER MICHAEL; A PASTORAL POEM by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THE ENEMY by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE PROLOGUE FOR MR. WOODS by ROBERT BURNS THE HEART O' THE WOODS by JOHN BURROUGHS |