Poems & poèmes/How Cold

by Natalie Clifford Barney

 

HOW COLD.

How cold the autumn night,
Fearing that never more,
As before,
    Will she pour
In with the moonlight through my door.
— On nights when the moon over-brimmed with light
Was like a loving-cup she bore.
. . . My love, my love's delight,
How are you lost ? How fight
Against an angel's flight?
Tarnished upon the floor
The halo desire kept bright!
Like a lonely child afright
Questions each empty fold —
When love's fairy tales are told.
In midnight's anguish might
My golden head turn white
Under the moon's down-pour:
in a moment a million moons more
Drown, chill and cover me quite . . .
Rather than feel the cold,
    The gradual growing cold —
Make me one with the autumn night.

— 34 —