Adelaide Crapsey

The Parting

Was it love breathed on us as on the skies
Dawn breathes for a short space and then is fled;
Or loved we never at all who but misread
With too dim vision the guarded mysteries?

Were we unfaithful or were we unwise,
Knew we not love, or if our love is dead,
If such were true, for grace of what is sped,
Could we not part with unaverted eyes?

But whence there looks askance as at strange fears?
Anmd when the far and muffled cryings that beat
Across the moment of our dire farewell?

Is here of sentience the dread burial?
Is it a still quick love that hear, oh hears,
The last earth fall, the sound of vanishing feet?