Tristram, by Frederic Manning [1910]

TRISTRAM

by

FREDERIC MANNING

Ah, my heart! my heart! It is weary without her.
I would that I were as the winds which play about her!
For here I waste and I sicken, and nought is fair
To mine eyes: nor night with stars in her clouded hair,
Nor all the whitening ways of the stormy seas,
Nor the leafy twilight trembling under the trees:
But mine hands crave for her touch, mine eyes for her sight,
My mouth for her mouth, mine eyes for her foot-falls light,
And my soul would drink of her soul through every sense,
Thirsting for her, as earth, in the heat intense,
For the soft song and the gentle dropping of rain.
But I sit here as a smouldering fire of pain,
Lonely, here! And the wind in the forest grieves,
And I hear my sorrow sobbing among the leaves.