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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TWO LIVES. PART 1: 8 by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: ONE NIGHT WHEN EARLY WINTER HAD BEGUN
Last Line: AND YEARS AND YEARS OF UNCOMPANIONED HOURS,

One night when early winter had begun
With gusty snows and frosty stars to keep
Our lives still closer, and our love more deep
Than even in autumn wanderings with the sun,
One night when we together, one-and-one,
Were sitting in the cushioned window-space,
Planning some purple flower-beds for the place
After our marriage, with new vines to run
About the basement wall; one night when time
Seemed all to come, and at its coming ours,
And we (as by an irony, sublime
In its gaunt mockery of human powers!)
Drifted at last backward to clime and clime
And years and years of uncompanioned hours,



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