The Debt

When I am dead and you gather up my poems, Put them all in, all those that speak of you, Those that glanced at you in sundry disguises, Ariadne, Daphne and the nameless nymph, The flower-bright queen who ruled a king in China, And the country-girl that early lost her love. Bind up with them the frank and honest sonnets, The open songs, the unashamed odes, That spoke straight to you and told that I loved you, Described your beauty or called you by name. These are not ours ; for what I took of beauty Belongs to our fellows for whom I write. The traces I have left on hill-top and valley Were made of the world and belong to the world ; But more than half of the loveliness I captured Was yours at first and now is the world's. Our first hidden kisses and unskilled embraces And the fierier love whereto we attained

Are lines on the chart whereby dreaming lovers Shall steer their hearts till the end of the world. When we are dead and our ashes are scattered, Let them say of us : She was and he wrote.