Deep chimed the bells!
     High atop the rocky tower,
     Age encrusted, winter rusted,
     They tolled the languid
     Summer hours,
     Those few precious
     Sunlit-moonspun days and nights
     We spent together,
     Filled with flowers and
     Jeweled with starry lights.
     We listened quietly,
     Softly, shyly,
     As their rolling call
     Bounced from ivy'd wall to wall,
     Filling every crack and sill,
     Every pebbled path until
     Eventide was rung.

     Perhaps
     Our linkéd souls
     Knew even then
     Their knell
     Rang our end.

     We sat upon a weathered bench,
     Near a bower
     Twined with vine and flower,
     Sweet with summer green and gold.
     We shared that eternal life
     Sitting there;
     We felt the soft summer air,
     Free from loss and care
     We heard the bells
     But did not hear
     Their echoes clear.
     Six times
     Those mighty gongs rang out!
     And then...
     We walked away, hand-in-hand.

     As gentle evening fell,
     Our twin souls grew dim,
     Knowing what our hearts
     Did not know.

     The days
     Were so golden then,
     So bright, so long
     We thought
     They could never end!
     We loved and laughed,
     We held and shared
     All the wonder
     The whirling world
     Prepared.
     But the bells rang out:
     Not so!  Not so!
     We could understand
     But that
     It was time to go.
     Hand-in-hand, smiling,
     We walked away.
     We climbed a hill
     To watch the end of day.
     Then through the deepening dark
     And into night
     We walked--
     No more was there light.

     Now ring those bells
     For other loves
     Who sit beside the tower,
     Who kiss beneath the bower.
     Now for them
     Those bells mark the days and hours,
     Till some bleak, cold
     November time, too,
     Those loves devours.

     10/31/75