You did not walk with me
Of late to the hill-top tree
By the gated ways,
As in earlier days;
You were weak and lame,
So you never came,
And I went alone, and I did not mind,
Not thinking of you as left behind.
I walked up there to-day
Just in the former way;
Surveyed around
The familiar ground
By myself again:
What difference, then?
Only that underlying sense
Of the look of a room on returning thence.
(1912)
O my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
O I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.
(1794)
He winds through the party like wind, one of the just
who live alone in black and white, bewildered
by the eden of his body. (You, you talk like winter
rain.) He's the meaning of almost-morning walking home
at five A.M., the difference a night makes
turning over into day, simple birds staking claims
on no sleep. Whatever they call those particular birds.
He's the age of sensibility at seventeen, he isn't worth
the time of afternoon it takes to write this down.
He's the friend that lightning makes, raking
the naked tree, thunder that waits for weeks to arrive;
he's the certainty of torrents in September, harvest time
and powerlines down for miles. He doesn't even know
his name. In his body he's one with air, white as a sky
rinsed with rain. It's cold there, it's hard to breathe,
and drowning is somewhere to be after a month of drought.
(1995)
