"The Little More...The Little Less... by Mary Corringham

"The Little More..."

Powerless we are when love will come;
   Powerless, when love will go.
The tender voice, how soon grown dumb!
   The racing pulse, how slow!

'Twere better then, while love is strong--
   At the high heat of bliss--
To seize the passions that belong
   To each impetuous kiss;

And, undivided in our will,
   Join hands, and lips, and eyes;
Even though morning holds no thrill
   Of wakening surprise. . . .

Life is a road that I have trod;
   Is a known, charted sea.
What I have had, not even God
   Can take away from me.

"The Little Less..."

You are more distant from me than that star!
   I scarce believe that we have ever met --
   So sweet, so brief, with no time to regret --
And now you trace your orbit aeons afar.
So soon grown inaccessible you are,
   As if you were a planet that had set
   Beyond my outer universe; and yet
What leagues of space to dreams were ever bar?

There was a moment when you drew as near
   As does the sun to ocean at nightfall,
On some still evening when no clouds appear.
   And nothing stirs the peace but a birdcall ....
Yea! Close as sun and ocean have we been --
Why should I weep if worlds now roll between?

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 October 1937

Author reference site: Austlit

See also.