CXCVI

If I could bask in you for far too long,

and have a bit too much of you to drink;

if I could rest at home where I belong:

encompassed by the hearth that’s you, and think

of all the ways you satisfy my need,

in every way the light of noonday Sun,

and how you make me tipsy like a mead,

no matter how the drinking is begun,

I’d tell you, as I tell the warming fire,

your passion is what keeps my heart alive,

and that your soul-sustaining, sweet desire,

is life to me each time we two arrive.

You wouldn’t take the Sun away from me,

do not then take from me the light that’s thee.