Nearer Than You

How can a woman tell
 When love is gone
 From love that merely sleeps
 But deep inside
 Has still the root
 The stem and flower grows on
 And so dreams not to die
 But sleeps to hide
 Perhaps
 When the clouds drifting by make more noise
 Than amorous whispers you aimlessly breathe
 And croakings of paddocks
 Speak with greater poise
 Than lily pad speeches
 With nothing beneath
 And so I'll confess what I know to be true
 That bullfrogs
 Have more eloquence than do you
 When days are longer than they used to be
 And nights are maddening eternity
 With only forced sighs to interrupt
 The same repose your lips
 Would once corrupt
 I'll steal me away
 So your soul shall not wake
 Though more than my absence
 To rouse it would take
 Across from the meadow and down to the pond
 To sink myself up to the waist
 Then beyond
 For water knows better in love what to do
 And plays with its prey
 With more passion than you
 In dreaming one may oft' release his grasp
 On what to conscious minds is naught but clear
 That once the time of questioning is near
 Chance there is none
 To hide the fatal asp
 Who follows me silently onto the shore
 Where I learn to cherish my new solitude
 And feel with precision
 What ere had been rude
 Yes, I shall return to thy bed nevermore
 Born was I with one heart
 I ask not for two
 When rushes and lilies press
 Nearer than you