a little Katharine Lee Bates for Independence Day

you know, the dyke who wrote "America the Beautiful."

If You Could Come
My love, my love, if you could come once more
From your high place,
I would not question you for heavenly lore,
But, silent, take the comfort of your face.

I would not ask you if those golden spheres
In love rejoice,
If only our stained star hath sin and tears,
But fill my famished hearing with your voice.

One touch of you were worth a thousand creeds.
My wound is numb
Through toil-pressed, but all night long it bleeds
In aching dreams, and still you cannot come.

"Yellow Clover" is about her 25 year relationship with Katharine Coman. I like the last stanza in particular:

My sorrow asks no healing; it is love;
Let love then make me brave
To bear the keen hurts of
This careless summertide,
Ay, of our own poor flower,
Changed with our fatal hour,
For all its sunshine vanished when you died.
Only white cover blossoms on your grave.

A bit depressing, which is not how I'm feeling, since my visa came yesterday! Huzzah! In the mail, on a Sunday, which is wierd, but I'm not complaining.