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?