Unfinished History

WE HAVE loved each other in this time twenty years

And with such love as few men have in them even for

One or for the marriage month or the hearing of

Three nights' carts in the street but it will leave them:

We have been lovers the twentieth year now:

Our bed has been made in many houses and evenings:

The apple-tree moves at the window in this house:

There were palms rattled the night through in one:

In one there were red tiles and the sea's hours:

We have made our bed in the changes of many months and the

Light of the day is still overlong in the windows

Till night shall bring us the lamp and one another:

Those that have seen her have no thought what she is:

Her face is clear in the sun as a palmful of water:

Only by night and in love are the dark winds on it....

I wrote this poem that day when I thought

Since we have loved we two so long together

Shall we have done together all love gone?

Or how then will it change with us when the breath

Is no more able for such joy and the blood is

Thin in the throat and the time not come for death?