I knew it the first of the summer, <br /> I knew it the same at the end, <br />That you and your love were plighted, <br /> But couldn’t you be my friend? <br />Couldn’t we sit in the twilight, <br /> Couldn’t we walk on the shore <br />With only a pleasant friendship <br /> To bind us, and nothing more? <br /> <br />There was not a word of folly <br /> Spoken between us two, <br />Though we lingered oft in the garden <br /> Till the roses were wet with dew. <br />We touched on a thousand subjects – <br /> The moon and the worlds above, - <br />And our talk was tinctured with science, <br /> And everything else, save love. <br /> <br />A wholly Platonic friendship <br /> You said I had proven to you <br />Could bind a man and a woman <br /> The whole long season through, <br />With never a thought of flirting, <br /> Though both were in their youth, <br />What would you have said, my lady, <br /> If you had known the truth! <br /> <br />What would you have done, I wonder, <br /> Had I gone on my knees to you <br />And told you my passionate story, <br /> There in the dusk and the dew? <br />My burning, burdensome story, <br /> Hidden and hushed so long – <br />My story of hopeless loving – <br /> Say, would you have thought it wrong? <br /> <br />But I fought with my heart and conquered, <br /> I hid my wound from sight; <br />You were going away in the morning, <br /> And I said a calm goodnight. <br />But now when I sit in the twilight, <br /> Or when I walk by the sea <br />That friendship, quite Platonic, <br /> Comes surging over me. <br />And a passionate longing fills me <br /> For the roses, the dusk, the dew; <br />For the beautiful summer vanished, <br /> For the moonlight walks – and you.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/platonic/
