Close My Heart

 

Oh, close this heart with closing doors

Behind a secret visitor.

And turn my watering eyes away

From his that leave our hide-away,

And blind the vision my eyes can't see:

A world we know that can't be free.

And drown the sounds from my ears

When his sweet words can not be here.

Hold still my swirling world, I pray,

Until he comes again to play.

 

Numb long days of lonely hours,

Cloud these eyes with endless showers,

And douse the fire that grows within

That finds me not a heroine,

But holds my waiting heart at bay

Until he comes to me to play.

 

O foolish one be I, alas,

To open a fragile heart of glass

To one whose heart's not free to give;

Another shares her life with his.

O curse this love within that grows

And mask my eyes for fear it shows;

Continue with this gay charade,

For he only comes to me to play.

 

Barbara Benjamin

Iambic tetrameter couplets                                                     

BBP190