EXPECTATION
Reading edition
How slowly you creep on—tick faster, clock! One that I love is nigh; when he is come You may cease ticking—little will I care For measurement of time! Then I’ll not peer Into your face and question, “what’s the hour?” If you withhold the telling, less my blame, For in that world of love, where soul meets soul, Time is not measured by the pendulum’s swing, But by quick pulse-beats. One that I love is nigh; What mean those words? Upon the silent air They fall, and strike upon my listening ear In echoing tones. “One that I love is nigh!” How strange that world of love, and yet, how fair; To once have lived there is to catch a glint Of the Eternal Brightness. Naught can separate Two souls that love. If I could fetters forge To bind his heart to mine, by such slight threads As spiders spin, I would not do it. Love Is loftiest in his flight when free of wing. O, is not love, In its eternal might, the power that binds All worlds together?