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A DOZEN years of days and nights these loved,
Days they were separate, and most nights alone,
Only the evenings made their common home
Where intimacy grew, but this was gloved ;
Mouth touching mouth in kiss,
Loins touching loins, but doomed to miss.
They ate the ordinary food, and none complained,
But spoke extraordinary words whose meaning raced
Beyond the language which had not encased
Such thoughts till then. Words die, but these remained ;
Instead of children, better,
Grew up, and were not flesh to fetter.
Only in loneliness; for when food was short
Their private language would unlearn its grace,
And world rushed in with stricken daily face
And made her mouth each pious mundane thought
Which all their life had banished
To beyond, where such thoughts vanished.
Not vanished quite, the ordinary never;
Like fire in flint, its being lay concealed
Till friction for its flame to be revealed,
And famine was the end of this endeavour.
Famine and drought on two mouths lay,
Which, rubbing, set alight their final day.
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