I Live Behind Forbidding Walls

July 7, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is love and separation.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A love poem about the cruel irony of losing one’s lover by remaining honorable in his or her eyes:

I live behind forbidding walls

Made of adamantine words.

I could walk out when my heart calls,

But, ah! Here flight is just for birds.

It was my luck to find my love

Just after I had been engaged.

I would for love the whole Earth move,

Nor care what god might be enraged.

Cruel irony! That word I gave,

My lover looked to me to keep;

For love performs as we behave,

Nor do respect and trust come cheap.

And so I did what all thought right,

Though it was wrong, and honor kept.

I stayed an angel in his sight,

And ever since in silence wept.

Our love remains, though we're apart,

Unsullied as a distant star,

While I must walk within my heart,

Condemned as haunted spirits are.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/iliveb.html. For more love poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/lovepoems.html .

This week’s theme: Love and Separation

July 6: Your Heart Broke When I Said I Had to Leave You

July 7: I Live Behind Forbidding Walls