69 Romantic poems

Where we’d recently lain, exchanging a kiss, stork consorted with crane, limpkin with ibis. Was this as much wedding as there would ever be, the fowls’ foot-webbing, the identificatory ring around a throat? Exchange of earth and air: not a vow but a vote of confidence a feather might tip by a single scale ... That one’s a raconteur, so much salt in his tale; this one’s a countertenor, lilting above the feast. The archon of his hectare — spotted — spotted least. Here’s a little heckler ... penciled seagull in the margin. Following line by line the path you took, I imagine no print so fine.

‘Tis true, ‘tis day, what though it be? O wilt thou therefore rise from me? Why should we rise because ‘tis light? Did we lie down because ‘twas night? Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither, Should in despite of light keep us together. Light hath no tongue, but is all eye; If it could speak as well as spy, This were the worst that it could say, That being well I fain would stay, And that I loved my heart and honour so, That I would not from him, that had them, go. Must business thee from hence remove? Oh, that’s the worst disease of love, The poor, the foul, the false, love can Admit, but not the busied man. He which hath business, and makes love, doth do Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.

1. Then the long fencerow, that years ago had heaved and buckled, took on a copper shine in the sunset, the dew. A garlic haze of cut pastures simmered fields away. 2. They were flushed from sex—they were traced with that other body, just parted. They stood in the length of first fall waiting. And their skin, that had been so willing, 3. delible as ash to a trembling fingertip, became its own again. One star, three. Nothing good was going to happen. Night winds lifted themselves out of wheat rows and shook 4. off what had been done. So they turned elsewhere. Her fingers gathered up her collar softly in a bunch, and she put on a scarf. It was not even cold. It was only cool.

Afterward, the compromise. Bodies resume their boundaries. These legs, for instance, mine. Your arms take you back in. Spoons of our fingers, lips admit their ownership. The bedding yawns, a door blows aimlessly ajar and overhead, a plane singsongs coming down. Nothing is changed, except there was a moment when the wolf, the mongering wolf who stands outside the self lay lightly down, and slept.

Good morning kiss. Their teeth glance. Clack of June bugs against pane. On the porch a young man in the full sun rocking. Jars incubate tomato plants. His mother sweeps the dirt yard away from flowering vinca and bottle tree. Straightens up, one-eyed by ragged hens. As her boy ambles away to the steady pulse in his skull. The cattle gate swinging open behind him. She takes a headache powder and it is nineteen and twenty seven. The James overruns its levee, backs up the Blackwater. Nineteen and twenty nine: she reads his postcard, the tobacco crop burns. Nineteen and thirty, drought. Long limp bags drag through fields. The Lord whistles for the fly. Revival tents threaten a rain of scorpions. To cure her hiccups, the woman sees a hypnotist. Promptly coughs herself to death. In pungs marked men ride. The son is blown away. No one returns in this story. No one escapes. The tribe is glued together for ruination, friends. There is no more time, there is no way out.

The Year’s twelve daughters had in turn gone by, Of measured pace tho’ varying mien all twelve, Some froward, some sedater, some adorn’d For festival, some reckless of attire. The snow had left the mountain-top; fresh flowers Had withered in the meadow; fig and prune Hung wrinkling; the last apple glow’d amid Its freckled leaves; and weary oxen blinkt Between the trodden corn and twisted vine, Under whose bunches stood the empty crate, To creak ere long beneath them carried home. This was the season when twelve months before, O gentle Hamadryad, true to love! Thy mansion, thy dim mansion in the wood Was blasted and laid desolate: but none Dared violate its precincts, none dared pluck The moss beneath it, which alone remain’d Of what was thine. Old Thallinos sat mute In solitary sadness. The strange tale (Not until Rhaicos died, but then the whole) Echion had related, whom no force Could ever make look back upon the oaks. The father said “Echion! thou must weigh, Carefully, and with steady hand, enough (Although no longer comes the store as once!) Of wax to burn all day and night upon That hollow stone where milk and honey lie: So may the Gods, so may the dead, be pleas’d!” Thallinos bore it thither in the morn, And lighted it and left it. First of those Who visited upon this solemn day The Hamadryad’s oak, were Rhodope And Acon; of one age, one hope, one trust. Graceful was she as was the nymph whose fate She sorrowed for: he slender, pale, and first Lapt by the flame of love: his father’s lands Were fertile, herds lowed over them afar. Now stood the two aside the hollow stone And lookt with stedfast eyes toward the oak Shivered and black and bare. “May never we Love as they loved!” said Acon. She at this Smiled, for he said not what he meant to say, And thought not of its bliss, but of its end. He caught the flying smile, and blusht, and vow’d Nor time nor other power, whereto the might Of love hath yielded and may yield again, Should alter his. The father of the youth Wanted not beauty for him, wanted not Song, that could lift earth’s weight from off his heart, Discretion, that could guide him thro’ the world, Innocence, that could clear his way to heaven; Silver and gold and land, not green before The ancestral gate, but purple under skies Bending far off, he wanted for his heir. Fathers have given life, but virgin heart They never gave; and dare they then control Or check it harshly? dare they break a bond Girt round it by the holiest Power on high? Acon was grieved, he said, grieved bitterly, But Acon had complied . . ’twas dutiful! Crush thy own heart, Man! Man! but fear to wound The gentler, that relies on thee alone, By thee created, weak or strong by thee; Touch it not but for worship; watch before Its sanctuary; nor leave it till are closed The temple-doors and the last lamp is spent. Rhodope, in her soul’s waste solitude, Sate mournful by the dull-resounding sea, Often not hearing it, and many tears Had the cold breezes hardened on her cheek. Meanwhile he sauntered in the wood of oaks, Nor shun’d to look upon the hollow stone That held the milk and honey, nor to lay His plighted hand where recently ’twas laid Opposite hers, when finger playfully Advanced and pusht back finger, on each side. He did not think of this, as she would do If she were there alone. The day was hot; The moss invited him; it cool’d his cheek, It cool’d his hands; he thrust them into it And sank to slumber. Never was there dream Divine as his. He saw the Hamadryad. She took him by the arm and led him on Along a valley, where profusely grew The smaller lilies with their pendent bells, And, hiding under mint, chill drosera, The violet shy of butting cyclamen, The feathery fern, and, browser of moist banks, Her offspring round her, the soft strawberry; The quivering spray of ruddy tamarisk, The oleander’s light-hair’d progeny Breathing bright freshness in each other’s face, And graceful rose, bending her brow, with cup Of fragrance and of beauty, boon for Gods. The fragrance fill’d his breast with such delight His senses were bewildered, and he thought He saw again the face he most had loved. He stopt: the Hamadryad at his side Now stood between; then drew him farther off: He went, compliant as before: but soon Verdure had ceast: altho’ the ground was smooth, Nothing was there delightful. At this change He would have spoken, but his guide represt All questioning, and said, “Weak youth! what brought Thy footstep to this wood, my native haunt, My life-long residence? this bank, where first I sate with him . . the faithful (now I know, Too late!) the faithful Rhaicos. Haste thee home; Be happy, if thou canst; but come no more Where those whom death alone could sever, died.” He started up: the moss whereon he slept Was dried and withered: deadlier paleness spread Over his cheek; he sickened: and the sire Had land enough; it held his only son.

You say good morning before anything else every single day without fail without being asked i didn't know how much that mattered until i had it now i do now i know

The photo of us from that trip is my lock screen still four years later my coworker noticed and didn't say anything the right call on her part the photo stays

How you laugh like it surprises you every time like the joke caught you off guard i set up jokes just for that