Marriage of youth! And quick a darkness fell, And time and space went down, consumed in fire; Through that dark space, only one breath, to tell That here was youth, and love, and wild desire: One heart that to itself sang ever higher, Tremulous, passionate, despite all pain,-- “How wonderful!--how wonderful!”--again. III October earth, with scarlet maple-leaf, With oak-leaves brown, with flaming leaves and pale; Mysterious autumn, symbol of all grief, Symbol of lives that die and hopes that fail: Now on the threshing-floor has fallen the flail, The hands are elsewhere that have stored the grain; Now comes the season of snows and bitter rain. Weeks passed.... And then one day there came a note To New York for this youth ... he tore and read. It was that girl he played with on the boat.... Scarcely three shaky lines ... in which she said, That she was sick with typhoid, nearly dead,-- Wanted to say she loved him; then she cried, O God, if he would come before she died!-- Loved him!... a blackness fell; and in his eyes, So long unused, and even now ashamed, He felt the warm tears quickening to rise.... Loved him!--he had not known.... Could he be blamed?-- Then a great light of sorrow in him flamed,-- And bitterness, his sight swam quickly dim,-- Thinking how little it had meant to him! Scarce knowing why, he packed his things and went.... He was surprised, on seeing her, to find how lovely she had been, though pale and spent.... He sat beside her, striving to be kind, Stroking her forehead.... Yet, she had divined, And known too bitterly, before she died, This man had never loved her, but had lied.... And he knew this: he knew that she had known; In her dark eyes he saw the mastered yearning, All the unspoken love that died in moan, Shrunk on itself, through all her body burning.... And many days the memory came returning Of her last kiss,--quivering, wet with tears,-- Her clinging hands, her brimmed eyes dark with fears.... Until at times a sudden terror came Lest, through great pity, he should love one dead,-- So burning sweet recurred in him this shame, So haunted him those eyes, that fallen head; The lips that pleaded so, the words she said,-- Pathetic words!--these haunted him a space; Then, in the dark of time he lost her face.... O Autumn! bringing to old adventures death, Sadness at all things past, things passing still,-- You touched this love with strange and dreadful breath; Easy as leaf is human love to chill,-- Easy as leaf is human to kill; Yet beautiful is that death with sudden flame, Ere it goes down to darkness, whence it came!... _The Poetry Journal_ _Conrad Aiken_ “IF YOU SHOULD CEASE TO LOVE ME”