Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Earth-clasp

Witter Bynner

WHETHER you fled from me not to have less

Of love but to have all without a night

Too much, like one who moves a cup which might

Brim over with the mounting of excess,

Or whether you had felt in my caress

The fingertips of surfeit and of blight

Attempting love, or whether your quick flight

Was to another love, I will not guess.

I touch the pillow that has touched your head,

And the brief candle that has lighted you

Sheds bleak and ashen light upon a face

As absent as the moon … till to replace

Your vanished arms, earth beckons me anew,

And in her clasp something of you is dead.