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Perennial

By Ernest Wentworth

SHE asked her lover, smiling, ” If one blend
    Two sweet sounds in a perfect symphony,
Or two harmonious colours till they lend
    A selfsame hue,—tell me, what alchemy
    Can part them after ? . . . So myself and thee,
My life and thine, fast mingled, nought can rend
Asunder ever.”—Nay, but hear the end.

The lovers’ lives, sometime thus wholly one,—
    One in minds’ thought, hearts’ wish, and bodies’ breath,—
Now singly such far-severed courses run
    As if each had survived the other’s death.
    Oh, sad strange thing ! Yet, as the Wise Man saith,
There is no new thing underneath the sun.
How early, then, were such sad things begun !

MLA citation:

Wentworth, Ernest. “Perennial.” The Yellow Book, vol. 5, April 1895, p. 191. Yellow Book Digital Edition, edited by Dennis Denisoff and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, 2010-2014. Yellow Nineties 2.0, Ryerson University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019. https://1890s.ca/YBV5_wentworth_perennial/