Day after day fades from me, Each one cold and wan Because you are not near me. Night after night drifts past, Cheerless, indifferent, Because you are not with me, Because I have not your lips to burn me Awake to a great rapture, Because you are not gripping me close to you, Because your eyes are not looking into mine With the keen entreaty of desire, Because the loveliness of your flesh is denied me, Because each night I lie alone. I am fierce, indignant, humiliated- To be chained away from you When I desire you above all things. Half I possess you, half hold you, half keep you; But would all of you satisfy my desire? I am insatiate, desperate- Death, if need be, or you near me, Loving me, beautifully piercing me to life, But not this, not this bitterness, this grief, This long torture of absence. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO MARK ANTHONY IN HEAVEN by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS THE SHEPHERD, FR. SONGS OF INNOCENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE THE PLAINT OF THE CAMEL by CHARLES EDWARD CARRYL AT A LUNAR ECLIPSE by THOMAS HARDY THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS by RUDYARD KIPLING THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD; OCTOBER, 1861 by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |