Shadow-boy, shadow lover, Why do you come To enchant me, to haunt me, To trouble me in dreams? The remembered delirium Of your dream-kiss Seems more real now than this That I wake to take in the light of day From him who lay by my side all night. Are you the ghost of some old desire, Lawless and lost—some dead caprice— That you conspire against my peace? Would you remind me Of some rash vow left behind me? Must you perturb me now? What's over is over, O phantom-lover! Or are you the warning in my breast Of some new passion dawning unconfessed? Some wild longing that I dare not know by day, That I must hide away in a secret dream at night, Shuttered utterly from sight— Lest I seem to be wronging one too dear so to wrong— One to whom my dreams belong! Do you hear? How does one exorcise A boy-ghost with laughing eyes? @3Anathema maranatha! Paz tecurn! Amen!@1 Shadow lover, Shadow-boy, Come not again! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE OTHER SIDE OF A MIRROR by MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY A VIEW, OF SADDLEBACK IN CUMBERLAND by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE IN THE SHADOWS: 20 by DAVID GRAY (1838-1861) LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI by JOHN KEATS ECHO [OR, ECHOES] by THOMAS MOORE VERSES OCCASIONED BY THE SUDDEN DRYING UP..ST.PATRICK'S WELL by JONATHAN SWIFT |