"To part at last
      without kiss,
 Beside the haystack
       in the floods."
          -William Morris.

I cannot give you
   reasons enough,
I do not myself
   understand

The loud lover,
     praying in sin,
Or the pain of those
     who sin in prayer.

A good-bye hurts a
    hundred times
       more,
Emptying the soul,
    embittering the
       heart,

Much more than a
    fatal spear-wound
       would.
The happy love is
    flown, a by-gone
        glow;

Locked in memory's
    gloomy corridors;
A mere past, life
   imprisoned in grief;

Robbed of fulfillment,
    future condemned
       to tears,
Gazing sadly over the
   prey of previous
      existence.

A good-bye hurts.