The Poetry Corner

Personality

By Archibald Lampman

O differing human heart, Why is it that I tremble when thine eyes, Thy human eyes and beautiful human speech, Draw me, and stir within my soul That subtle ineradicable longing For tender comradeship? It is because I cannot all at once, Through the half-lights and phantom-haunted mists That separate and enshroud us life from life, Discern the nearness or the strangeness of thy paths Nor plumb thy depths. I am like one that comes alone at night To a strange stream, and by an unknown ford Stands, and for a moment yearns and shrinks, Being ignorant of the water, though so quiet it is, So softly murmurous, So silvered by the familiar moon.