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One Day We Played a Game
(Yolande: Her Poem)
One day we lay beneath an apple tree,
Tumultuous with fruit, live with the bee,
And there we played a gay, fantastic game
Of our own making, called Name me a Name.
The grave was liberal, letting us endow
Ourselves with names of lovers who by now
Are dust, but rarer dust for loving high
Than they shall be who let the red flame die. . . .
Crouched sphinx-wise in the grass, you hugged your knees,
And called me “Abelard;” I, “Heloise,”
Rejoined, and added thereto, “Melisande;”
Then “Pelleas,” I heard, and felt a hand
Slide into mine; joy would not let us speak
Awhile, but only sit there cheek to cheek,
Hand clasping hand. . . . till passion made us bold;
“Tristan,” you purred to me. . . . I laughed, “Isolde.”
Tumultuous with fruit, live with the bee,
And there we played a gay, fantastic game
Of our own making, called Name me a Name.
The grave was liberal, letting us endow
Ourselves with names of lovers who by now
Are dust, but rarer dust for loving high
Than they shall be who let the red flame die. . . .
Crouched sphinx-wise in the grass, you hugged your knees,
And called me “Abelard;” I, “Heloise,”
Rejoined, and added thereto, “Melisande;”
Then “Pelleas,” I heard, and felt a hand
Slide into mine; joy would not let us speak
Awhile, but only sit there cheek to cheek,
Hand clasping hand. . . . till passion made us bold;
“Tristan,” you purred to me. . . . I laughed, “Isolde.”
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