A RESTLESS GHOST
Alas for obstinate doubt: the dread
Of error in supposing my heart freed,
All care for her stone dead!
Ineffably will shine the hills and radiant coast
Of early morning when she is gone indeed,
Her divine elements disbanded, disembodied
And through the misty orchards in love spread--
When she is gone indeed--
But still among them moves her restless ghost.
TROUGHS OF SEA
'Do you delude yourself?' a neighbor asks,
Dismayed by my abstraction.
But though love cannot question love
Nor need deny its need,
Pity the man who finds a rebel heart
Under his breastbone drumming
Which reason warns him he should drown
In midnight wastes of sea.
SHE IS NO LIAR
She is no liar, yet she will wash away
Honey from her lips, blood from her shadowy hand,
And, dressed at dawn in clear white robes will say,
Trusting the ignorant world to understand:
'Such things no longer are; this is today.'
A LOST JEWEL
Who on your breast pillows his head now,
Jubilant to have won
The heart beneath on fire for him alone,
At dawn will hear you, plagued by nightmare,
Mumble and weep
About some blue jewel you were sworn to keep.
Wake, blink, laugh out in reassurance,
Yet your tears will say:
'It was not mine to lose or give away.
'For love it shone--never for the madness
Of a strange bed--
Light on my finger, fortune in my head.'
Roused by your naked grief and beauty,
For lust he will burn:
'Turn to me, sweetheart! Why do you not turn?'
I'D DIE FOR YOU
I'd die for you, or you for me,
So furious is our jealousy--
And if you doubt this to be true
Kill me outright, lest I kill you.
--Robert Graves
