Wild Nights – Wild Nights! Were I with thee Wild Nights should be Our luxury! Futile – the winds – To a heart in port – Done with the compass – Done with the chart! Rowing in Eden – Ah, the sea! Might I moor – Tonight – In thee!
As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
"The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest
We turn the sun away,
And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved -
So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life's Declivity.
We dream — it is good we are dreaming — It would hurt us — were we awake — But since it is playing — kill us, And we are playing — shriek — What harm? Men die — externally — It is a truth — of Blood — But we — are dying in Drama — And Drama — is never dead — Cautious — We jar each other — And either — open the eyes — Lest the Phantasm — prove the Mistake — And the livid Surprise Cool us to Shafts of Granite — With just an Age — and Name — And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian — It's prudenter — to dream —
He fumbles at your spirit As players at the keys Before they drop full music on; He stuns you by degrees. Prepares your brittle substance For the ethereal blow by fainter hammers, further heard, Then nearer, then so slow Your breath has time to straighten Your brain to bubble cool,- Deals one imperial thunderbolt That scalps your naked soul.
Love can do all but raise the Dead I doubt if even that From such a giant were withheld Were flesh equivalent But love is tired and must sleep, And hungry and must graze And so abets the shining Fleet Till it is out of gaze.