Tower of Ivory/Sonnet (The Parting of the Ways)

by Archibald MacLeish

SONNET

(The Parting of the Ways)

We had each other's youth; the halcyon
At wrist, Hymettos but a sunny sail
Beyond each morning's morrow, and the gale
Set westward. Oh, we had the towering sun,
The lift of the year, flood tide,—all things begun,
None ended, none attained; even to fail
Was tart grape under tongue, and life a tale
That should have pause for reveries anon.

We had each other's youth; why then what's lost
If we who one time, 'top of happy hours,
Found each the other and himself found most,
Finding how self in all selves blows and flowers—
If we who were one seeking and one ghost,
Losing each other, find what loss is ours?