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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Earl Marlatt

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Love Untold

Earl Marlatt

I CANNOT tell

How much I love you.

A haunting legend frightens me.

The men who dared for Helen

Knew sacredly

What I have learned and fear:

The swan that sings its soul

Must die, my dear,

Must die.

I cannot tell

How much I love you.

But—

There was a Man

Once, long ago,

Who loved you so divinely,

That he hung upon a cross

And died—

Died shamefully—for you.

My darling, would you understand?

I cannot tell

How much I love you, sweet-my-dear,

Unless I die—

Unless I die.