Love Goes, We Stay

by ROBERT P. TRISTRAM COFFIN

LOVE, it is not our ecstasy
That perishes, ii is we that stay
Behind it when it widens into wings,
We sit here, and it flies, and we grow gray.

Believe me when I swear a love like ours
Finds even a century of time too brief,
It cannot stay with us who breathe in death,
It takes to pinions swift beyond belief.

Our love had in it hot blood of the stars
From its conception, in its fierce first spark,
It must move faster than the speed of light
And keep ahead of cool time and the dark.

If we could follow this our mingled flame,
We might keep abreast of the loveliest things:
The rainbow, perfect for less than a breath,
Eternity in hummingbirds’ quick wings.

We might keep level with the golden eyes
Of deer forever ahead of the flying steel,
Little foxes gentle to infant hares
Forever in their first day’s commonweal.

But we must stay, and the breathless instant run
Wherein we only breathe and have brave being,
Our moment was the morning-glory’s blue,
Never there again for a second seeing.

Yet believe me, love, that instant of ours
Is safe, though we are trapped and cannot follow,
With light that stretches the universe all ways
Our love, all wings and eyes, speeds like the swallow.