Hot hollow winds of August shake the trees

As if we meet again in this rough world

And chancing harm allow our voice its song

The whispers, cries, the muffled beats of heart,

And speech the temperature of our one breath,

Like early leaves upon the golfing green

Or nettles eased by Dog Star’s bark or beam.

If proof is slow and fearful time is fled

To some unholy punctuated night—

If then you hear that I have stole’ the ring

And lost the sacred virtue of our dream, by

Slipping ghost-like through courts to lie with queens—

Oh love,— gather rueful charges like a babe

In your sweet arms and rock them till they sleep!