The Star and the Garter: (A Timeless Classic) - Tapa blanda

What sadness closes in betweenYour eyes and mine to-day, my queen?In dewfall of our glance hath comeThe chill of sunset in hot lands’Mid iris and chrysanthemum.Well do I know the shaken sandsWithin the surf, the beaten barOf coral, the white nenupharOf moonrise stealing o’er the bay.So here’s the darkness, and the daySinks, and a chill clusters, and IWrap close the cloak: then is it soTo-day, you rose-gleam on the snow,My own true lover? ArdentlyI dare not look: I never lookedSo: that you know. But insight keenWe (laugh and) call not “love.” Now crookedThe light swerves somehow. Do you mean—What? There is coldness and regretSet like the stinging winter sprayBlown blind back from a waterfallOn Cumbrian moors at Christmas. WetThe cold cheek numbs itself. A wayIs here to make—an end of all?What sadness closes in betweenYour eyes and mine to-day, my Queen?