free-verse44 lines
Platonic.
by Ella Wheeler WilcoxI knew it the first of the Summer -
I knew it the same at the end -
That you and your love were plighted,
But couldn't you be my friend?
Couldn't we sit in the twilight,
Couldn't we walk on the shore,
With only a pleasant friendship
To bind us, and nothing more?
There was never a word of nonsense
Spoken between us two,
Though we lingered oft in the garden
Till the roses were wet with dew.
We touched on a thousand subjects -
The moon and the stars above;
But our talk was tinctured with science,
With never a hint of love.
"A wholly platonic friendship,"
You said I had proved to you,
"Could bind a man and a woman
The whole long season through,
With never a thought of folly,
Though both are in their youth."
What would you have said, my lady,
If you had known the truth?
Had I done what my mad heart prompted -
Gone down on my knees to you,
And told you my passionate story
There in the dusk and dew;
My burning, burdensome story,
Hidden and hushed so long,
My story of hopeless loving -
Say, would you have thought it wrong?
But I fought with my heart and conquered:
I hid my wound from sight;
You were going away in the morning
And I said a calm good-night.
But now, when I sit in the twilight
Or when I walk by the sea,
That friendship quite "platonic"
Comes surging over me.
And a passionate longing fills me
For the roses, the dusk and the dew, -
For the beautiful Summer vanished -
For the moonlit talks - and you.