Hesitancy

I wish I dared to write

     A verse to you;

To you whose soul is white,

     Whose heart is true.

Whose smile is like the sky

     June’s fairest day,

Whose liquid, laughing eye

     Drives gloom away.

I wish I dared, I say,

     To write to you,

To write a loving lay

     Whole-souled and true.

But I dare not; I fear

     ‘Twould be too strong;

And would I know, my dear

     Be O, so long!

c. Nov. 19, 1915