| WHEN love has changed to kindliness— | |
| Oh, love, our hungry lips, that press | |
| So tight that Time’s an old god’s dream | |
| Nodding in heaven, and whisper stuff | |
| Seven million years were not enough | 5 |
| To think on after, make it seem | |
| Less than the breath of children playing, | |
| A blasphemy scarce worth the saying, | |
| A sorry jest, “When love has grown | |
| To kindliness—to kindliness!”… | 10 |
| And yet—the best that either’s known | |
| Will change, and wither, and be less, | |
| At last, than comfort, or its own | |
| Remembrance. And when some caress | |
| Tendered in habit (once a flame | 15 |
| All heaven sang out to) wakes the shame | |
| Unworded, in the steady eyes | |
| We’ll have,—that day, what shall we do? | |
| Being so noble, kill the two | |
| Who’ve reached their second-best? Being wise, | 20 |
| Break cleanly off, and get away. | |
| Follow down other windier skies | |
| New lures, alone? Or shall we stay, | |
| Since this is all we’ve known, content | |
| In the lean twilight of such day, | 25 |
| And not remember, not lament? | |
| That time when all is over, and | |
| Hand never flinches, brushing hand; | |
| And blood lies quiet, for all you’re near; | |
| And it’s but spoken words we hear, | 30 |
| Where trumpets sang; when the mere skies | |
| Are stranger and nobler than your eyes; | |
| And flesh is flesh, was flame before; | |
| And infinite hungers leap no more | |
| In the chance swaying of your dress; | 35 |
| And love has changed to kindliness. | |
