O, Sweet Sometime

O, sweet Sometime, the gardens bloom the while I wait;
Each moment melts a tear of joy before thy gate;
It is thy pleasure that I burn,—it is my fate,
O, sweet Sometime!

O, when the moment in this interval is born,
When through this sleeping splendor breaks the lingering morn,
And when thy sensual silence laughs my noise to scorn—
O, sweet Sometime!

Spare me the vacant moment yet,—O just awhile;
Expectancy, thy sweetest daughter, will beguile
My yearning hours; the shades reflected by her smile
Are now my haunts, O sweet Sometime.

The waiting while, O sweet Sometime, I can enjoy;
Thy heralding shadows every beating pang destroy,
And with their breath of musk and myrrh my soul they cloy,
O, sweet Sometime!

I tremble, I forget, I throb when once I hear
The dying interval announcing thou are near;
A touch, a groan, a kiss and thou wilt disappear,
With bitten lip, O, sweet Sometime!

And then the memory—O, how it will oppress!
Far sweeter is Expectancy—ah, let me press
The vigor from her limbs to mind; I’ll yet caress
The waiting while, O, sweet Sometime!

Credit

From Myrtle and Myrrh (The Gorham Press, 1905) by Ameen Rihani. This poem is in the public domain.