THE SHARP RIDGE
Since now I dare not ask
Any gift from you, or gentle task,
Or lover's promise--nor yet refuse
Whatever I can give and you dare choose--
Have pity on us both: choose well
On this sharp ridge dividing death from hell.
UNDER THE OLIVES
We never would have loved had love not struck
Swifter than reason, and despite reason:
Under the olives, our hands interlocked,
We both fell silent:
Each listened for the other's answering
Sigh of unreasonableness --
Innocent, gentle, bold, enduring, proud.
THE CURE
No lover ever found a cure for love
Except so cruel a thrust under the heart
(By her own hand delivered)
His wound was nine long years in healing,
Purulent with dead hope,
And ached yet longer at the moon's changes . . .
More tolerable the infection than its cure.
--Robert Graves
