When I can dare at last to speak your name It shall not be with hushed and reverent speech As if your spirit were beyond the reach Of homely merry things, kind jest or game. Death shall not hide you in some jewelled shrine Nor set you in marmoreal pomp apart, You who still share the ingle of my heart, Participant in every thought of mine. Your name, when I can dare to speak it, dear, Shall still be linked with laughter and with joy. No solemn panegyrist shall destroy My image of you, gay, familiar As in old happy days,—lest I discover Too late I’ve won a saint but lost a lover.
This poem is in the public domain.