If love of mine could witch you back to earth
It would be when the bat is on the wing,
The lawn dew-drenched, the first stars glimmering,
The moon a golden slip of seven nights’ birth.
If prayer of mine could bring you it would be
To this wraith-flowered jasmine-scented place
Where shadow trees their branches interlace;
Phantoms we’d tread a land of fantasy.
If love could hold you I would bid you wait
Till the pearl sky is indigo and till
The plough show silver lamps beyond the hill
And Aldebaran burns above the gate.

If love of mine could lure you back to me
From the rose gardens of eternity. 

This poem is in the public domain.

Last night
                   tossed in
my bed
                  the sound of the rain turned me
around,
               a leaf
in a dried gully
                        from side to
side,
          the sound of the rain took me
apart,      opened to             what is it?
breath caught in memory of
a deep sweetness
                             that sound
                             unceasing
delicate,             the wetness running
through my body
                           It might be nighttime
                           in a forest hut,
the rain constant
                          in little rivulets
splashing,
                       at times uncertain—

safe in each other's arms,
                                       the rain sheltering
us       a depth opening
bottomless to a terrible sweetness,
                                             the small rain
shaking us in our bed
                                         (the terror)
whispering
                        End of a season,
                        wind from the west

From To Hold in My Hand: Selected Poems, 1955-1983 (Sheep Meadow Press, 1983). Copyright © 1983 by Hilda Morley.