When Beauty and Beauty meet All naked, fair to fair, The earth is crying-sweet, And scattering-bright the air, Eddying, dizzying, closing round, With soft and drunken laughter; Veiling all that may befall After--after--
Where Beauty and Beauty met, Earth's still a-tremble there, And winds are scented yet, And memory-soft the air, Bosoming, folding glints of light, And shreds of shadowy laughter; Not the tears that fill the years After--after--
Your hands, my dear, adorable, Your lips of tenderness --Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well, Three years, or a bit less. It wasn't a success.
Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road, Quit of my youth and you, The Roman road to Wendover By Tring and Lilley Hoo, As a free man may do.
For youth goes over, the joys that fly, The tears that follow fast; And the dirtiest things we do must lie Forgotten at the last; Even Love goes past.
What's left behind I shall not find, The splendour and the pain; The splash of sun, the shouting wind, And the brave sting of rain, I may not meet again.
But the years, that take the best away, Give something in the end; And a better friend than love have they, For none to mar or mend, That have themselves to friend.
I shall desire and I shall find The best of my desires; The autumn road, the mellow wind That soothes the darkening shires. And laughter, and inn-fires.
White mist about the black hedgerows, The slumbering Midland plain, The silence where the clover grows, And the dead leaves in the lane, Certainly, these remain.
And I shall find some girl perhaps, And a better one than you, With eyes as wise, but kindlier, And lips as soft, but true. And I daresay she will do.
Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, Where that comes in that shall not go again; Love sells the proud heart's citadel to Fate. They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking, And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying Of credulous hearts, in heaven--such are but taking Their own poor dreams within their arms, and lying Each in his lonely night, each with a ghost. Some share that night. But they know, love grows colder, Grows false and dull, that was sweet lies at most. Astonishment is no more in hand or shoulder, But darkens, and dies out from kiss to kiss. All this is love; and all love is but this.