Reconciliation

Listen, dearest! you must love me more,
More than you did before!--
Hark, what a beating here of wings!
Never at rest,
Dear, in your breast!--
Is it your heart with its flutterings,
Making a music, love, for us both?
Or merely a moth, a velvet-winged moth,
Which out of the garden's fragrance swings,
Weaving a spell,
That holds the rose and the moon in thrall?--
I love you more than I can tell;
And no recall
How long ago
Our quarrel and all!--
You say, you know,
A perfect pearl grows out of--well,
A little friction; tiny grain
Of sand or shell--
So love grew out of that moment's pain,
The heart's disdain--
Since then I have thought of no one but you,
And how your heart would beat on mine,
Like light on dew.
And I thought how foolish to fret and pine!
Better to claim the fault all mine!
To go to you and tell you that:
And how stale and flat
All life without you was, and vain!
And when I came, you turned and smiled,
Like a darling child,
And I knew from your look that, in your heart,
You had followed the self-same train
Of thought that made me yours again.--

Dearest! no more!--
We shall never part!--
So. Turn your face as you did before.--

I smooth your brow
And kiss you.--Now....
Tell me true--
Did you miss me, dear, as I missed you?