I wish, like a coat, I could wear
The impressions my letter created,
When you read my love’s apology, alone,
And you ran to me, in grateful tears.
But when we express what we feel,
It plays along the nerves, and tickles along the love invisible—
The faintest light, which ends its dying flight in evening mist, is more visible,
And the same with my poetry.
You grew into a collection—resented, and lugged home
By students, lost in documents, who ridiculed,
“Here is the best knowledge kept in parchment for the young.”
Coldly my quiet poet’s name became known,
But this fall day, with new chills in the air,
The tickling chill tickling the hairs up and down my arm,
And you somewhere—would you appear?
The weather, the cafés, the people, the boulevard, about the same,
Or never, this was already—was it long ago?
And you, my feelings, and you, and you,
The jacket, or a coat? something you and the world might see,
Is it here, and what else to you might be pertaining to me?