| We sat together at one summer's end, | |
| That beautiful mild woman, your close friend, | |
| And you and I, and talked of poetry. | |
| I said, "A line will take us hours maybe; | |
| Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, | 5 |
| Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. | |
| Better go down upon your marrow-bones | |
| And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones | |
| Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather; | |
| For to articulate sweet sounds together | 10 |
| Is to work harder than all these, and yet | |
| Be thought an idler by the noisy set | |
| Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen | |
| The martyrs call the world." | |
| And thereupon | 15 |
| That beautiful mild woman for whose sake | |
| There's many a one shall find out all heartache | |
| On finding that her voice is sweet and low | |
| Replied, "To be born woman is to know -- | |
| Although they do not talk of it at school -- | 20 |
| That we must labour to be beautiful." | |
| I said, "It's certain there is no fine thing | |
| Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring. | |
| There have been lovers who thought love should be | |
| So much compounded of high courtesy | 25 |
| That they would sigh and quote with learned looks | |
| precedents out of beautiful old books; | |
| Yet now it seems an idle trade enough." | |
| |
| We sat grown quiet at the name of love; | |
| We saw the last embers of daylight die, | 30 |
| And in the trembling blue-green of the sky | |
| A moon, worn as if it had been a shell | |
| Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell | |
| About the stars and broke in days and years. | |
| I had a thought for no one's but your ears: | 35 |
| That you were beautiful, and that I strove | |
| To love you in the old high way of love; | |
| That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown | |
| As weary-hearted as that hollow moon. | |