The Yellow Book/Volume 5/Perennial
Perennial
By Ernest Wentworth
She asked her lover, smiling, "If one blend Two sweet sounds in a perfect symphony, Or two harmonious colours till they lend A selfsame hue,—tell me, what alchemy Can part them after? . . . So myself and thee, My life and thine, fast mingled, nought can rend Asunder ever"—Nay, but hear the end.
The lovers' lives, sometime thus wholly one,— One in minds' thought, hearts' wish, and bodies' breath,—Now singly such far-severed courses run As if each had survived the other's death. Oh, sad strange thing! Yet, as the Wise Man saith,There is no new thing underneath the sun.How early, then, were such sad things begun!