I HAVE NEVER LOVED YOU YET

I have never loved you yet, if now I love.

If Love was born in that bright April sky

And ran unheeding when the sun was high,

And slept as the moon sleeps through Autumn nights

While those dear steady stars burn in their heights:

If Love so lived and ran and slept and woke

And ran in beauty when each morning broke,

Love yet was boylike, fervid and unstable,

Teased with romance, not knowing truth from fable.

But Winter after Autumn comes and stills

The petulant waters and the wild mind fills

With silence; and the dark and cold are bitter,

O, bitter to remember past days sweeter.

Then Spring with one warm cloudy finger breaks

The frost and the heart's airless black soil shakes;

Love grown a man uprises, serious, bright

With mind remembering now things dark and light.

O, if young Love was beautiful, Love grown old

Experienced and grave is not grown cold.

Life's faithful fire in Love's heart burns the clearer

With all that was, is and draws darkling nearer.

I have never loved you yet, if now I love.