John Frederick Nims

Here you will find the Poem The Young Ionia of poet John Frederick Nims

The Young Ionia

If you could come on the late train for
The same walk
Or a hushed talk by the fireplace
When the ash flares
As a heart could (if a heart would) to
Recall you,
To recall allin a long
Look, to enwrap you
As it once had when the rain streamed on the
Fall air,
And we knew, then, it was all wrong
It was love lost
And a year lost of the few years we
Account most &mdash
But the bough blew and cloud
Blew and the sky fell
From its rose ledge on the wood's rim to
The wan brook,
And the clock read to the half-dead
A profound page
As the cloud broke and the moon spoke and the
Door shook &mdash

If you could come, and it meant come at the
Steep price
We regret yet as the debt swells
In the nighttime
And the could come if you could hum in
The skull's drum
And the limbs writhe till the bed
Cries like a hurt thing &mdash
If you could &mdash ah but the moon's dead and the
Clock's dead.
For we know now: we can give all
But it won't do,
Not the day's length nor the black strength nor
The blood's flush.

What we took once for a sure thing,
For delight's right,
For the clear eve with its wild star in
The sunset,
We would have back at the old
Cost, at the old grief
And we beg love for the same pain &mdash for a
Last chance!
Then the god turns with a low
Laugh (as the leaves hush)
But the eyes ice and there's no twice: the
Benign gaze
Upon some woe but on ours no,
And the leaves rush.