Excursion

I wonder, can the night go by;     Can this shot arrow of travel fly     Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky     Of a dawned to-morrow,     Without ever sleep delivering us     From each other, or loosing the dolorous     Unfruitful sorrow!     What is it then that you can see     That at the window endlessly     You watch the red sparks whirl and flee     And the night look through?     Your presence peering lonelily there     Oppresses me so, I can hardly bear     To share the train with you.     You hurt my heart-beats' privacy;     I wish I could put you away from me;     I suffocate in this intimacy,     For all that I love you;     How I have longed for this night in the train,     Yet now every fibre of me cries in pain     To God to remove you.     But surely my soul's best dream is still     That one night pouring down shall swill     Us away in an utter sleep, until     We are one, smooth-rounded.     Yet closely bitten in to me     Is this armour of stiff reluctancy     That keeps me impounded.     So, dear love, when another night     Pours on us, lift your fingers white     And strip me naked, touch me light,     Light, light all over.     For I ache most earnestly for your touch,     Yet I cannot move, however much     I would be your lover.     Night after night with a blemish of day     Unblown and unblossomed has withered away;     Come another night, come a new night, say     Will you pluck me apart?     Will you open the amorous, aching bud     Of my body, and loose the burning flood     That would leap to you from my heart?