Erotica/An Appeal

by Arthur Clark Kennedy

An Appeal

My love is all too great for speech,
The words that swell upon my tongue
Fall still-born back, unsaid, unsung;
   Canst not divine
The mute appeal that shines from each
Of my soul's windows, lit within
By burning love, yet does not win
   Return from thine?

O, let one answering look appease
The thirst of life's parched desert lands,
Down the long reaches of whose sands
   I wander lone,
Then shall the wilderness with trees
Bud, in whose branches all day long
Birds shall awake and break in song
   For thee mine own.