Western wind, when wilt thou blow,

The small rain down can rain?

Christ! If my love were in my arms,

And I in my bed again.

I suppose this is an overquoted poem, though if ever a poem deserved to be overquoted, this is it, sweet little anonymous long-ago lyric. I'm sure I have a version with more accurate antiquated spelling somewhere in the house; but this is how I first learned the poem when I was in high school, and this is the spelling that's been pasted into my memory.

I was beetling away at Phaeton-poem revisions this morning, and suddenly "Western wind, when wilt thou blow" leapt to my lips. I have no idea why, except that it's a poem that tends to come to me when I'm smitten with a diffused, nameless, melancholy longing; and my Phaeton poem does make me sad, partly because it's tragic, partly because it's finished and now I'm not writing anymore. Really, finishing a poem makes me more than sad. I get scared . . turning off my imagination like a tap, not knowing what I'll do next. What if I never write anything ever again?

So We'll Go No More a-Roving

George Gordon, Lord Byron

So we'll go no more a-roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a-roving

By the light of the moon.