It is enough of honor for one lifetime
To have known you better than the rest have known,
The shadows and the colors of your voice,
Your will, immutable and still as stone.
The shy heart, so lonely and so gay,
The sad laughter and the pride of pride,
The tenderness, the depth of tenderness
Rich as the earth, and wide as heaven is wide.
“_When I Am Not With You_”
When I am not with you
I am alone,
For there is no one else
And there is nothing
That comforts me but you.
When you are gone
Suddenly I am sick,
Blackness is round me,
There is nothing left.
I have tried many things,
Music and cities,
Stars in their constellations
And the sea,
But there is nothing
That comforts me but you;
And my poor pride bows down
Like grass in a rain-storm
Drenched with my longing.
The night is unbearable,
Oh let me go to you
For there is no one,
There is nothing
To comfort me but you.
_Dedication_
At least I have loved you;
Though much went wrong,
This was good,
This was strong.
Unshaken
In spite of the going of years,
Too sure to retract,
Too proud for tears.
Let my love be the pillow
Under your head,
On your lips like a song,
To your hunger, bread.
_On a March Day_
Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind
That shakes the naked shadows on the ground,
Making a key-board of the earth to strike
From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound,
Bear witness for me that I loved my life,
All things that hurt me and all things that healed,
And that I swore to it this day in March,
Here at the edge of this new-broken field.
You only knew me, tell them I was glad
For every hour since my hour of birth,
And that I ceased to fear, as once I feared,
The last complete reunion with the earth.
_Let It Be You_
Let it be you who lean above me
On my last day,
Let it be you who shut my eyelids
Forever and aye.
Say a “Good-night” as you have said it
All of these years,
With the old look, with the old whisper
And without tears.
You will know then all that in silence
You always knew,
Though I have loved, I loved no other
As I love you.
_The Flight_
We are two eagles
Flying together
Under the heavens,
Over the mountains,
Stretched on the wind.
Sunlight heartens us,
Blind snow baffles us,
Clouds wheel after us
Ravelled and thinned.
We are like eagles,
But when Death harries us,
Human and humbled
When one of us goes,
Let the other follow,
Let the flight be ended,
Let the fire blacken,
Let the book close.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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