Did you want me to stand at your garden gate,
And croon for you?
Like dear William did for the fair maid Margaret,
Or Molly, or whichever other doomed lovers lived, loved, swore and died,
A century or more before you and I were born?
I would make a fine William, fleeing from my home,
Braving the cold of the river, promising it my bones hereafter,
If I could speak one word to you over the water’s roar,
Only to hang on your door, and be turned away by your mother.
But, hearing my voice from the deep garden, on the far side of the far wall,
At dusk, would you steal downstairs silently,
To retrieve your coat and shoes, and step out into the growing dark,
Tread like a vision down the garden path, and lift the latch and let me in?
Tomorrow be damned; now I take you solemnly by the hand.
The night is cool and deep.
Come. Not yet.