At Seventeen

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