Roger L. Sergel

I CANNOT lose you, dear, let come what may,

For you are with me as a melody

And have been through the ages. I can see

No time in all times that within me stay

When you were not the worth of every day.

The names I called you by have passed from me,

The forms I loved you in perhaps will be

Again sweet woman forms of loveliest clay.

And then, perhaps, you may be as a breath

Of rosy flame along the narrowing west;

For even now in all that I love best

Your name starts as a music—and the hue

Of beauty trembles through me. Dear, in death

I’ll find, not immortality, but you.