HUMILIATION

I HAVE been so innerly proud, and so long alone, Do not leave me, or I shall break. Do not leave me. What should I do if you were gone again So soon? What should I look for? Where should I go? What should I be, I myself, "I"? What would it mean, this I? Do not leave me. What should I think of death? If I died, it would not be you: It would be simply the same Lack of you. The same want, life or death, Unfulfilment, The same insanity of space You not there for me. Think, I daren't die For fear of the lack in death. And I daren't live. Unless there were a morphine or a drug. I would bear the pain. But always, strong, unremitting It would make me not me. The thing with my body that would go on living Would not be me. Neither life nor death could help. Think, I couldn't look towards death Nor towards the future: Only not look. Only myself Stand still and bind and blind myself. God, that I have no choice! That my own fulfilment is up against me Timelessly! The burden of self-accomplishment! The charge of fulfilment! And God, that she is necessary! Necessary, and I have no choice! Do not leave me.

A YOUNG WIFE THE pain of loving you Is almost more than I can bear. I walk in fear of you. The darkness starts up where You stand, and the night comes through Your eyes when you look at me. Ah never before did I see The shadows that live in the sun! Now every tall glad tree Turns round its back to the sun And looks down on the ground, to see The shadow it used to shun. At the foot of each glowing thing A night lies looking up. Oh, and I want to sing And dance, but I can't lift up My eyes from the shadows: dark They lie spilt round the cup. What is it?—Hark The faint fine seethe in the air! Like the seething sound in a shell! It is death still seething where The wild-flower shakes its bell And the sky lark twinkles blue— The pain of loving you Is almost more than I can bear.