Platonic.

I knew it the first of the Summer -         I knew it the same at the end -     That you and your love were plighted,         But couldn't you be my friend?     Couldn't we sit in the twilight,         Couldn't we walk on the shore,     With only a pleasant friendship         To bind us, and nothing more?     There was never a word of nonsense         Spoken between us two,     Though we lingered oft in the garden         Till the roses were wet with dew.     We touched on a thousand subjects -         The moon and the stars above;     But our talk was tinctured with science,         With never a hint of love.     "A wholly platonic friendship,"         You said I had proved to you,     "Could bind a man and a woman         The whole long season through,     With never a thought of folly,         Though both are in their youth."     What would you have said, my lady,         If you had known the truth?     Had I done what my mad heart prompted -         Gone down on my knees to you,     And told you my passionate story         There in the dusk and dew;     My burning, burdensome story,         Hidden and hushed so long,     My story of hopeless loving -         Say, would you have thought it wrong?     But I fought with my heart and conquered:         I hid my wound from sight;     You were going away in the morning         And I said a calm good-night.     But now, when I sit in the twilight         Or when I walk by the sea,     That friendship quite "platonic"         Comes surging over me.     And a passionate longing fills me         For the roses, the dusk and the dew, -     For the beautiful Summer vanished -         For the moonlit talks - and you.