Explore "Love in Twilight" by Stephen Vincent Benet on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There is darkness behind the light -- and the pale light drips / Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom / Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships -- / And the firelight wavers and changes about the room,
As the three logs crackle and burn with a small still sound; / Half-blotting with dark the deeper dark of her hair, / Where she lies, head pillowed on arm, and one hand curved round / To shield the white face and neck from the faint thin glare.
Gently she breathes -- and the long limbs lie at ease, / And the rise and fall of the young, slim, virginal breast / Is as certain-sweet as the march of slow wind through trees, / Or the great soft passage of clouds in a sky at rest.
I kneel, and our arms enlace, and we kiss long, long.
I am drowned in her as in sleep. There is no more pain.
Only the rustle of flames like a broken song / That rings half-heard through the dusty halls of the brain.
One shaking and fragile moment of ecstasy, / While the grey gloom flutters and beats like an owl above.
And I would not move or speak for the sea or the sky / Or the flame-bright wings of the miraculous Dove!