We who have loved, alas! may not be friends
Too faint, or yet too fierce the stifled fire,--
A random spark--and lo! our dread desire
Leaps into flame, as though to make amends
For chill, blank days, and with strange fury rends
The dying embers of Love's funeral pyre.
Electric, charged anew, the living wire
A burning message through our torpor sends.
Could we but pledge with loyal hearts and eyes
A friendship worthy of the fair, full past,
Now mutilate, and lost beyond recall,
Then might a Phoenix from its ashes rise
Fit for a soul flight: but we find, aghast,
Love must be nothing if not all in all.
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
