Special Pleading
Time, hurry my Love to me: Haste, haste! Lov’st not good company? Here’s but a heart-break sandy waste ’Twixt Now and Then. Why, killing haste Were best, dear Time, for thee, for thee! Oh, would that I might divine Thy name beyond the zodiac sign Wherefrom our times-to-come descend. He called thee `Sometime’. Change it, friend: `Now-time’ sounds so much more fine! Sweet Sometime, fly fast to me: Poor Now-time sits in the Lonesome-tree And broods as gray as any dove, And calls, `When wilt thou come, O Love?’ And pleads across the waste to thee. Good Moment, that giv’st him me, Wast ever in love? Maybe, maybe Thou’lt be this heavenly velvet time When Day and Night as rhyme and rhyme Set lip to lip dusk-modestly; Or haply some noon afar, -- O life’s top bud, mixt rose and star, How ever can thine utmost sweet Be star-consummate, rose-complete, Till thy rich reds full opened are? Well, be it dusk-time or noon-time, I ask but one small boon, Time: Come thou in night, come thou in day, I care not, I care not: have thine own way, But only, but only, come soon, Time.
Sidney Lanier’s other poems:
899
