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Title: Sonnets On Separation
Author: Edward Shanks [
More Titles by Shanks]
I.
The time shall be, old Wisdom says, when you
Shall grow awrinkled and I, indifferent,
Shall no more follow the light steps I knew
Or trace you, finding out the way you went,
By swinging branches and the displaced flowers
Among the thickets. I no more shall stand,
With careful pencil through the adoring hours
Scratching your grace on paper. My still hand
No more shall tremble at the touch of yours
And I'll write no more songs and you'll not sing.
But this is all a lie, for love endures
And we shall closer kiss, remembering
How budding trees turned barren in the sun
Through this long week, whereof one day's now done.
II.
The time is all so short. One week is much
To be without your deep and peaceful eyes,
Your soft and all-contenting cheek, the touch
Of well-caressing hands. O were we wise
We would not love too strongly, would not bind
Life into life so inextricably,
That the dumb body suffers with the mind
In a sad partnership this agony.
For death will come and swallow up us two,
You there, I here, and we shall lie apart,
Out of the houses and the woods we knew.
Then in the lonely grave, my dust-choked heart
Out of the dust will raise, if it can speak,
A threnody for this lost, lovely week.
III.
Is there no prophylactic against love?
Can I with drugs not dull the ache one night?
The rain is heavy and the low clouds move
Over the empty home of our delight
And find me in it weeping. You are far
And you are now asleep. The night's so thick,
Not even one stooping and compassionate star
Shines on us both disparted. O be quick,
Torturing days and heavy, turn your hours
To minutes, melt yourselves into one day!
... The cold rain falls in swift assailing showers,
Darkness is round me and light far away.
I'm in our well-known room and you're shut in
By strange unfriendly walls I've never seen.
IV.
Lovers that drug themselves for ecstasy
Seek love too closely in an overdose,
When the sweet spasm turns to agony
And the quick limbs are still and the eyes close.
I too, a fool, desired--to make love strong--
Absence and parting but the measure's brimmed,
The dose is over-poured, the time's too long
Already, though two nights have hardly dimmed
My lonely eyes with the elusive sleep.
O I'll remember, I'll not wish again
To go with ardent limbs into this deep
Sea of dejection, this dull mere of pain:
We'll love our safer loves upon the shore
And quest for inexperienced joys no more.
V.
Through the closed curtains comes the early sun,
First a pale finger, preluding the hand.
Outside more certainly the day's begun,
Where bright and brighter still the chestnuts stand,
Broad candles lighting up at the first fire.
I stir and turn in my uneasy sleep
But in my sorrow sleep's my whole desire.
About the still room small lights move and creep
Silently, stealthily on wall and chair,
Till to strong rays and shining lights they grow,
Which with their magic change the waiting air
And all its sleeping motes to gold and throw
A golden radiance on your empty bed,
Which wakes me with vain likeness to your head.
VI.
To-morrow I shall see you come again
Between the pale trees, through the sullen gate,
Out of the dark and secret house of pain
Where lie the unhappy and unfortunate.
To-morrow you will live with me and love me,
Spring will go on again, I'll see the flowers
And little things, ridiculous things, shall move me
To smiles or tears or verse. The world is ours
To-morrow. Open heaths, tall trees, great skies,
With massive clouds that fly and come again,
Sweet fields, delicious rivers and the rise
And fall of swelling land from the swift train
We'll see together, knowing that all this
Is one great room wherein we two may kiss.
VII.
We're at the world's top now. The hills around
Stand proud in order with the valleys deep,
The hills with pastures drest, with tall trees crowned,
And the low valleys dipt in sunny sleep.
A sound brims all the country up, a noise
Of wheels upon the road and labouring bees
And trodden heather, mixing with the voice
Of small lost winds that die among the trees.
And we are prone beneath the flooding sun,
So drenched, so soaked in the unceasing light,
That colours, sounds and your close presence are one,
A texture woven up of all delight,
Whose shining threads my hands may not undo,
Yet one thread runs the whole bright garment through.
[The end]
Edward Shanks's poem: Sonnets On Separation
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