Poetry: A Magazine of Verse
Again, when Celia laughed, I doubted her and said:
"Life must be led
In many ways more difficult to see
Than this immediate way
For you and me.
We stand together on our lake's edge, and the mystery
Of love has made us one, as day is made of night and night of day.
Conscious of one identity
Within each other, we can say,
'I love you, all that you are.'
We are uplifted till we touch a star.
We know that overhead
Is nothing more austere, more starry, or more deep to understand
Than is our union, human hand in hand . . .
But over our lake comes strangers . . . a crowded launch, a lonely sailing boy.
A mile away a train bends by. In every car
Strangers are travelling, each with particular
And unkind preference like ours, with privacy
Of understanding, with especial joy
Like ours. Celia, Celia, why should there be
Distrust between ourselves and them, disunity?
How careful we have been
To trim this little circle that we tread,
To set a bar
To strangers and forbid them! Are they not as we,
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