Winter Midnight

After our fond, reiterate farewells In the shadow of the wall, between the lamplight and the moon, I left you, and returned, and, torn from you once more, Departed loath and laggardly Into the icy, luminous, immense white night. But, though my every step was a gulf dividing us On ways forlorn and chill, I was not cold nor sorrowful nor alone, Nor friended by regret; For love went with me like the warmth of a happy room And soft enfolding arms; And the widening space between us Was somehow one with love, And evermore I knew That your heart and my heart were islanded In the self-same throbbing sea of happiness and light, And washed by the self-same waves of vibrant memory, Like shores of halcyon summer Where halcyon perfumes mount beneath a burning moon.