Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/Twelve Hours Apart
TWELVE HOURS APART.
He loved me. But he loved, likewise, This morning's world in bloom and wings;Ah, does he love the world that lies In dampness, whispering shadowy things, Under this little band of moon?
He loves me? Will he fail to see A phantom hand has touched my hair(And wavered, withering, over me) To leave a subtle greyness there, Below the outer shine of June?
He loves me? Would he call it fair, The flushed half-flower he left me, say!For it has passed beneath the glare And from my bosom drops away, Shaken into the grass with pain?
He loves me? Well, I do not know. A song in plumage crossed the hillAt sunrise when I felt him go— And song and plumage now are still. He could not praise the bird again.
He loves me? Veiled in mist I stand, My veins less high with life than whenTo-day's thin dew was in the land, Vaguely less beautiful than then— Myself a dimness with the dim.
He loves me? I am faint with fear. He never saw me quite so old;I never met him quite so near My grave, nor quite so pale and cold ———Nor quite so sweet, he says, to him!