Long After Never

Posted by Ace on May 1st, 2009 filed in letters from Ace, poetry

For some reason that poem made me think of this one, which I wrote myself long ago, in the Time of Legends, as a gift for someone whose friendship and company I enjoyed for a few short years.

—

If thy green eyes should dim from hurt, what then my pain?

If dusken hues imbued within thy cheek should fail

As Autumn’s majesty in sullen Winter’s rain

Thy golden hope-flowers lost to this unseasonable gale

How were’t?

This God-kissed clay, these vernal forms, shall fade at last

And leave us soon enough to rest with quiet hearts and memories of evenings warm

And summer clouds and honeyed vales like blossoms pressed in pages

Evermore beyond the chastening storm

But not this way

If Malice masks as Age’s ken, let Patience serve to keep a Spring within my arms

And Love to save its colours, paint them back again

Restore without the gardens of thine inner charms

Mayhaps among the rows I’ll find a peace, and then

I’ll rest at last.


3 Responses to “Long After Never”

  1. Yoko Says:
    May 1st, 2009 at 5:25 pm

    This is beautiful.

  2. Ace Says:
    May 2nd, 2009 at 11:51 am

    Thanks. Ironically, my memory of what the woman I wrote it for thought about it is completely gone. It must not have been a terribly strong reaction, either way…

    There were two other poems I wrote for her that preceded this one. I like them both, too, but I’m not sure I would print them anywhere; one, because they were more specifically about her and I, in a way that’s hard to qualify, and two, because they’re somewhat doggerel compared to this one.

    I also discovered during a brief search of my apartment that I have no written copies of the above (although there might be one or two somewhere, lost, or in someone else’s possession.) I memorized it when I wrote it, and can still recite it from memory, almost 20 years later. That, too, is ironic, also in ways that are hard to qualify.

  3. Two Red Roses: Then and Now | Tales of the Interregnum Says:
    June 24th, 2011 at 4:23 pm

    […] bring up the couple of poems I’ve ever written that I thought were any good.  One of them is the nameless “summer clouds and honeyed vales” poem I’ve already shared in this space.  Another is a piece entitled “Two Red Roses”, […]