Is it love that drifts your head toward your white, cool shoulder, heat-smitten rose too tense for the white throat? Is it love that paints the eyelid ledge with iris; the weariness of days I dare not know you suffered? Is it love that hurts or thought?
Has sleep conquered love? Have you spent your love on the white cytisus ridges, the Nereid-blue water, the wing-dip of the hills?
Are my own limbs but a sheath for your intensity, my love.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 7, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
