To One In Allienation

I Last night I saw you decked to meet The coming of those most reluctant feet: The little bonnet that you wear When you would fain, for his sake, be more fair; The primrose ribbons that so grace The perfect pallor of your face; The dark gown folded back about the throat, And folds of lacework that denote All that beneath them, just beneath them, lies: God, for his eyes! So the man came and took you; and we lay So near and yet so far away, You in his arms, awake for joy, and I Awake for very misery, Cursing a sleepless brain that would but scrawl Your image on the aching wall, That would but pang me with the sense Of that most sweet accursed violence Of lovers' hands that weary to caress (Those hands!) your unforbidden loveliness. And with the dawn that vision came again To an unrested and recurrent brain: To think your body, warm and white, Lay in his arms all night; That it was given him to surprise, With those unhallowed eyes, The secrets of your beauty, hid from me, That I may never (may I never?) see: I who adore you, he who finds in you (Poor child!) a half-forgotten point of view. II As I lay on the stranger's bed, And clasped the stranger-woman I had hired, Desiring only memory dead Of all that I had once desired; It was then that I wholly knew How dearly I had loved you, my lost friend; While I am I, and you are you, How I must love you to the end. For I lay in her arms awake, Awake and cursing the indifferent night, That ebbed so slowly, for your sake, My heart's desire, my soul's delight; For I lay in her arms awake, Awake in such a solitude of shame, That when I kissed her, for your sake, My lips were sobbing on your name.