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How can a woman tell |
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When love is gone |
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From love that merely sleeps |
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But deep inside |
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Has still the root |
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The stem and flower grows on |
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And so dreams not to die |
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But sleeps to hide |
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Perhaps |
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When the clouds drifting by make more noise |
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Than amorous whispers you aimlessly breathe |
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And croakings of paddocks |
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Speak with greater poise |
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Than lily pad speeches |
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With nothing beneath |
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And so I'll confess what I know to be true |
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That bullfrogs |
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Have more eloquence than do you |
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When days are longer than they used to be |
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And nights are maddening eternity |
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With only forced sighs to interrupt |
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The same repose your lips |
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Would once corrupt |
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I'll steal me away |
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So your soul shall not wake |
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Though more than my absence |
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To rouse it would take |
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Across from the meadow and down to the pond |
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To sink myself up to the waist |
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Then beyond |
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For water knows better in love what to do |
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And plays with its prey |
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With more passion than you |
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In dreaming one may oft' release his grasp |
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On what to conscious minds is naught but clear |
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That once the time of questioning is near |
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Chance there is none |
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To hide the fatal asp |
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Who follows me silently onto the shore |
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Where I learn to cherish my new solitude |
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And feel with precision |
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What ere had been rude |
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Yes, I shall return to thy bed nevermore |
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Born was I with one heart |
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I ask not for two |
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When rushes and lilies press |
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Nearer than you |
