I do not attach much importance to the publication or non publication of my poetry and never have done. Most of it (the published part) appeared five, ten, fifteen or even thirty or more years after they were written. The few recently published in magazines (not all of them new, e.g. the sonnets) owed their fate to Nolini's eagerness and not to my initiative. But the vast bulk of what I have written (long poems mostly) lies on shelf and in drawer, most of it for more than a decade, awaiting either dissolution or an interminable revision or total recasting which at the present rate may well retain them there a decade or two more. But that is my own idiosyncrasy—it cannot be a rule or example for others.
Because thy flame is spent, shall mine grow less, O bud, O wonder of the opening rose? Why both my soul and Love it would disgrace If I could trade in love, begin and close My long account of passion, like a book Of merchant's credit given to be repaid, Or not returned, struck off with lowering look Like a bad debt uncritically made. What thou couldst give, thou gav'st me, one sweet smile Worth all the sunlight that the years contain, One month of months when thy sweet spirit awhile Fluttered o'er mine half-thinking to remain. What I could give, I gave thee, to my last breath Immortal love, immovable by death.
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