Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/436

VARIOUS POEMS EDGED TOOLS

, Helen, quite two years have flown

Since that enchanted, dreamy night,

When you and I were left alone,

And wondered whether they were right

Who said that each the other loved;

And thus debating, yes and no,

And half in earnest, as it proved,

We bargained to pretend 't was so.

Two sceptic children of the world,

Each with a heart engraven o'er

With broken love-knots, quaintly curled,

Of hot flirtations held before;

Yet, somehow, either seemed to find,

This time, a something more akin

To that young, natural love,—the kind

Which comes but once, and breaks us in.

What sweetly stolen hours we knew,

And frolics perilous as gay!

Though lit in sport, Love's taper grew

More bright and burning day by day.

We knew each heart was only lent,

The other's ancient scars to heal:

The very thought a pathos blent

With all the mirth we tried to feel.

How bravely, when the time to part

Came with the wanton season's close,

Though nature with our mutual art

Had mingled more than either chose,

We smothered Love, upon the verge

Of folly, in one last embrace, 406