You were a child, and liked me, yesterday. <br />To-day you are a woman, and perhaps <br />Those softer eyes betoken the sweet lapse <br />Of liking into loving: who shall say? <br />Only I know that there can be for us <br />No liking more, nor any kisses now, <br />But they shall wake sweet shame upon your brow <br />Sweetly, or in a rose calamitous. <br /> <br />Trembling upon the verge of some new dawn <br />You stand, as if awakened out of sleep, <br />And it is I who cried to you, 'Arise!' <br />I who would fain call back the child that's gone, <br />And what you lost for me would have you keep, <br />Fearing to meet the woman of your eyes.<br /><br />Arthur Symons<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/at-seventeen-2/
