Impressions: A Book of Verse/A Summer Evening in the City
A SUMMER EVENING IN THE CITY
IN the soft pulsing darkness here
We silent sit, my heart beats loud
With joyous sense that you are near
Yet dares not speak the thoughts that crowd
And fill my soul, until I seem
No more myself; but, through the night
Like the pale shadow of a dream
To float and quiver as the light
Faint quivers on the wall.
The dim light from street lamps below
That slanting strikes above my head,
The sound of footsteps to and fro
This summer night, unreal and dread
All common things strike on my heart,
Like voices weird from bygone years.
In some fantastic way, a part
Of my past life this night appears,
And you the soul of it.
Your shadowy form across the room
Seems stretching shadowy arms to me;
Our souls embrace in the soft gloom,
Not two but one they seem to be,
Held breathless by this night's strange power
Which we may never feel again,
Farewell and greeting in one hour
We say to keenest joy and pain
Which yet is but a dream.