Ghost-bereft

poem

Iris Shaw

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Take me back again and haunt me, ghost,

Fair-and-foul-and-kindest, purest thing

I am myself against myself, o, I am lost

Without my fears, all-benign imprisoning —

What if, now and my darling, I confessed

That far from banishment, I want you still;

I love you, and more, that all the blighted rest

Granted then should not deter me: have your fill

And eat out all my days, my dearest one;

Like fever-rotten dreams are they to me

And like stones through my hand they run,

Cold nightmares swallowed naked by the sea.

O, love, had I you here, but for an hour,

I’d love, and loving, see my heart devoured.

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