THE DARK FIRE

Love me not less

Yet ease me of this fever,

That in my wondering heart

Burns, sinks, burns again ever.

Is it your love

In me so fiercely burning,

Or my love leaping to you

Then requickened returning?

Come not to me,

Bring not your body nearer,

Though you overleapt the miles

I could not behold you clearer.

I could not clasp you

Than in my thought more surely;

Breast to breast, heart to heart

Might cling no more securely.

I do not know you,

Seeing you, more than unseeing.

What you are that you are

Here in my spiritual being.

Leave me you cannot,

Nor can I remove me

From the sevenfold dark fire

You have lit here since you love me.

Yet love unsure

No wilder could be burning.

Come, go, come, go,

There's neither leaving nor returning.

Love me, love me more.

O, not my heart shall quaver

If the dark fire more deep

Sinks and is sevenfold sevenfold graver.