Kindliness

When love has changed to kindliness,     Oh, love, our hungry lips, that press     So tight that Time's an old god's dream     Nodding in heaven, and whisper stuff     Seven million years were not enough     To think on after, make it seem     Less than the breath of children playing,     A blasphemy scarce worth the saying,     A sorry jest, "When love has grown     To kindliness, to kindliness!" . . .     And yet, the best that either's known     Will change, and wither, and be less,     At last, than comfort, or its own     Remembrance. And when some caress     Tendered in habit (once a flame     All heaven sang out to) wakes the shame     Unworded, in the steady eyes     We'll have, THAT day, what shall we do?     Being so noble, kill the two     Who've reached their second-best? Being wise,     Break cleanly off, and get away.     Follow down other windier skies     New lures, alone? Or shall we stay,     Since this is all we've known, content     In the lean twilight of such day,     And not remember, not lament?     That time when all is over, and     Hand never flinches, brushing hand;     And blood lies quiet, for all you're near;     And it's but spoken words we hear,     Where trumpets sang; when the mere skies     Are stranger and nobler than your eyes;     And flesh is flesh, was flame before;     And infinite hungers leap no more     In the chance swaying of your dress;     And love has changed to kindliness.