Whym Chow: Flame of Love :: :: University of Virginia Library

When others are about me and the lips
Of any other bid me to forget,
Urge me I must not suffer whole eclipse
Of light without a rim, nor let
My tears fall ever—since the dew even slips
At its own season from the earth washed wet,
Or bid me seek in other lands to find
New images to hide thee from my mind—

Then am I desolate nor do I weep;
A tongueless scream is on my breath for load;
And thou art in a little grave, deep, deep,
Scooped in my heart—such small abode
For thee, a spot so narrow where to keep
My all, in wood and stone the damps corrode.
Nay, when we laid thee in thy earthly grave
No such life-dwindling woe thy burial gave!

And when the others leave me piercingly
I wheel and cry above my hidden need,
As sea-birds for their prey beneath the sea:
Then sudden with a single heed,
I sink down where my whole desire would be,
Where I would find my unseen life and feed;
Lost in my heart my pinions seek their food;
My heart, a silver sea's infinitude.

A sea—no tomb, no coffin...till again
Those others write or prattle at my side,
And bid me take distraction, woo my pain
To flux of pleasures, travel wide,
Then through the bitterness of my disdain
I feel thy grave where lowly thou dost hide,
And curse these comforters who bring me death,
When I alone with thee feed and draw breath.