Love, do not count your labour lost <br />Though I turn sullen, grim, retired <br />Even at your side; my thought is crossed <br />With fancies by old longings fired. <br /> <br />And when I answer you, some days <br />Vaguely and wildly, do not fear <br />That my love walks forbidden ways, <br />Breaking the ties that hold it here. <br /> <br />If I speak gruffly, this mood is <br />Mere indignation at my own <br />Shortcomings, plagues, uncertainties; <br />I forget the gentler tone. <br /> <br />'You,' now that you have come to be <br />My one beginning, prime and end, <br />I count at last as wholly 'me,' <br />Lover no longer nor yet friend. <br /> <br />Friendship is flattery, though close hid; <br />Must I then flatter my own mind? <br />And must (which laws of shame forbid) <br />Blind love of you make self-love blind? <br /> <br />... Do not repay me my own coin, <br />The sharp rebuke, the frown, the groan; <br />No, stir my memory to disjoin <br />Your emanation from my own. <br /> <br />Help me to see you as before <br />When overwhelmed and dead, almost, <br />I stumbled on that secret door <br />Which saves the live man from the ghost. <br /> <br />Be once again the distant light, <br />Promise of glory not yet known <br />In full perfection — -wasted quite <br />When on my imperfection thrown.<br /><br />Robert Graves<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sullen-moods/
