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.
