For Irené on St Valentine's Day

What right have you and I to talk of love
Expatriates from the country of the young?
Our thinning blood's at leisure in our veins,
The sharp tuned nerves of Eros all unstrung.
We fondly watch the relics of our love
Who propagate anew, and - in our place -
Do forge bright links along the endless chain
To join the rusting link of our embrace.
But echoes from the anvil of your loins
Greeting my hammer blows with rousing rings
Have not yet faded from the quivering iron;
And still it sings.



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