Bei Hennef

The little river twittering in the twilight,
The wan, wondering look of the pale sky,
            This is almost bliss.

And everything shut up and gone to sleep,
All the troubles and anxieties and pain
            Gone under the twilight.

Only the twilight now, and the soft “Sh!” of the river
            That will last forever.

And at last I know my love for you is here,
I can see it all, it is whole like the twilight,
It is large, so large, I could not see it before
Because of the little lights and flickers and interruptions,
             Troubles, anxieties, and pains.

             You are the call and I am the answer,
             You are the wish, and I the fulfillment,
             You are the night, and I the day.
                         What else—it is perfect enough,
                         It is perfectly complete,
                         You and I.
Strange, how we suffer in spite of this!

Credit

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 29, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“Bei Hennef” was published in Love Poems and Others (Duckworth and Co., 1913).