Who Are You
Stop there—girl—
Do not gift another kiss
Till I've found a shade to rest
From a certain thought that vultures
Me when we're together—
I dislike what I must say
For it feels I do betray
All the fortune I have landed
With your rose so near me planted
But from fear I must confess that
I feel this is all a test—
I feel you are but a test—
Till this hour I've not known a
Girl with essence like your own:
Woodland eyes of raven keen,
Midnight mind that phthalo bleeds,
Meadow soul that lets me lay in
Roman sunlight's golden bay—
From the shore's infinite sand I
Could pick out your grain by hand my
Girl but—
Though of you my heart approves, my
Mind does brood in its suspicions—
We've yet to eclipse a moon, yet
Somehow you do hum my tune—
Curious you know the song that
Ever long I've kept a secret—
How can you so knoweth me?—
Love has just to sprout a seed, yet
In all I think, do, and say it
Feels as if you've mapped My Way, but
We've not shared a blush of Fall!—
Nor a Winter's tearful thaw!—
How do you so knoweth me!—
Did you somehow curseth me!—
In my tomb, where I do whisper,
Are you there, a specter listener?
You must have the Seer's Glass that
Mortal minds allow trespass—or
Did your fairy tongue of nectar
Bind our souls in sweet together?
Heiress of Victorian wind I
Chime to you as sovereign, for
In myself I feel yourself and
Never have felt someone else! not
My own father, mother, sister,
Not the boy on memory's pier, nor
Even He within the mirror!—
Never have felt someone dearer!—
Who are you to knoweth me, as
Sirens knoweth men of sea?—as
If you're made from my own rib, as
If you're made for me by Him—
How else could you knoweth me—un
Less you came from my own rib—un
Less you're made for me by Him—