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I did not think it would be like this—no,

not this exact, unsparing blaze;

not something that would take the mind in tow

and leave it altered in its native ways.

For you are not a thought I can revise,

nor some bright ornament upon the day;

you enter as a fact that does not rise

or fall with will—you are, and you remain.

Remain—God, how entire. Not as a fever

that breaks and leaves the body to its peace,

but as a light no darkening can dissever,

that alters air itself, and will not cease.

You are the climate now, the given sky,

the pressure under which all things must live;

not felt as something passing inwardly,

but as the world made other—positive.

What would you have? That I should play the part—

the civil ghost, the man who passes through

with tempered voice, a well-instructed heart,

as though the air were not possessed by you?

I cannot. Something in me turns to meet

the very thought of you, as fields to sun;

and all the careful structures I repeat

fall out of use, as though they were undone.

It is not choice. If choice were mine, I’d choose

a lesser portion, something I could keep

within the bounds of sense, and never lose

myself in what I cannot hold, or sleep.

But this is laid on me without consent—

not as a burden only, but a law;

and I am altered to the element

I would not seek, and cannot now withdraw.

And this—the part I cannot make you see

without undoing all I still pretend:

that you might turn, and still be whole to me,

and I survive, and call that not the end.

Not death—no, death would be the kinder art,

to close the book and leave no further claim—

but this: to live with you in every part,

and have you free—and love you just the same.