Lost Lights

“Let’s not be sentimental!”
You said, oh dear delight!
Well, you held Heaven’s rental;
And who was I to fight?
“Cool friends, alert and laughing,
And blessed by Plato’s snow.
But other wine for quaffing,
Be sentimental? No!”

I took you at your own word.
—Fool while my life shall last!
And found the “friend” a stone word,
And knew the radiance past.
The comradeship by snatches,
The love that lit my days
Went out like burnt-out matches
Before your husband’s gaze.

He strokes you with caresses
Too sugared to be sweet,
And fatly pats your tresses,
And binds your swift-winged feet;
And you’ve no thirst to slake from
The gold of each new June.
Nor ever dare to break from
Your sticky-bright cocoon.

I could have held you cleaner,
And free as clouds are free,
And shared you with nought meaner
Than sun and stars and sea.
But I’d a sense of humor
—At least you told me so—
And pride beyond all rumor!
And so I let you go.

Life breaks us—that grows plainer.
And wit declines to gall
With none of us the gainer ...
It seems a shame—that’s all!
When truth about me nears you
You’d better shut your eyes.
And you—his sugar smears you.
And the air crawls with flies.