Explore "Their Sweet Sorrow" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
They meet to say farewell: Their way / Of saying this is hard to say. -- / He holds her hand an instant, wholly / Distressed -- and she unclasps it slowly.
He bends his gaze evasively / Over the printed page that she / Recurs to, with a new-moon shoulder / Glimpsed from the lace-mists that enfold her.
The clock, beneath its crystal cup, / Discreetly clicks -- "Quick! Act! Speak up!"
A tension circles both her slender / Wrists -- and her raised eyes flash in splendor,
Even as he feels his dazzled own. -- / Then, blindingly, round either thrown, / They feel a stress of arms that ever / Strain tremblingly -- and "Never! Never!"
Is whispered brokenly, with half / A sob, like a belated laugh, -- / While cloyingly their blurred kiss closes, / Sweet as the dew's lip to the rose's.