Love! Love! Your tenderness, <br />Your beautiful, watchful ways <br />Grasp me, fold me, cover me; <br />I lie in a kind of daze, <br />Neither asleep nor yet awake, <br />Neither a bud nor flower. <br />Brings to-morrow <br />Joy or sorrow, <br />The black or the golden hour? <br /> <br />Love! Love! You pity me so! <br />Chide me, scold me--cry, <br />"Submit--submit! You must not fight!" <br />What may I do, then? Die? <br />But, oh my horror of quiet beds! <br />How can I longer stay! <br />"One to be ready, <br />Two to be steady, <br />Three to be off and away!" <br /> <br />Darling heart--your gravity! <br />Your sorrowful, mournful gaze-- <br />"Two bleached roads lie under the moon, <br />At the parting of the ways." <br />But the tiny, tree-thatched, narrow lane, <br />Isn't it yours and mine? <br />The blue-bells ring <br />Hey, ding-a-ding, ding! <br />And buds are thick on the vine. <br />Love! Love! Grief of my heart! <br />As a tree droops over a stream <br />You hush me, lull me, dark me, <br />The shadow hiding the gleam. <br />Your drooping and tragical boughs of grace <br />Are heavy as though with rain. <br />Run! Run! <br />Into the sun! <br />Let us be children again.<br /><br />Katherine Mansfield<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/covering-wings/
