Interval

This poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) was unpublished in his lifetime, and is not available on The Eldritch Dark, so here's the complete text:

Ah! silent is my love

For stress of all the words can never say,

Of all that lovers prove

Only with endless kisses, or delay

Of some supreme caress before the day.

No more of speech or song,

No more of music now: my lips are mute,

Wanting your lips too long:

For what the lute-player without the lute?

The flutist, vainly seeking his flute?

On ways not yet forgot.

Return, O nimble feet that stray too far:

If April brings you not,

Black are the days and false the calendar. . . .

I wait you as the twilight waits the stars.   

"Interval" is a fairly straightforward poem of romantic yearning, but I like the musical references that compare the isolation of the speaker from his partner with "the lute-player without the lute" and "The flutist, vainly seeking his flute".  The suggestion that the reunited lovers will make sweet music together is effective, if not entirely original!