| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | The Earth-clasp | | By Witter Bynner |
| | From “Presences”
WHETHER you fled from me not to have less | |
| Of love but to have all without a night | |
| Too much, like one who moves a cup which might | |
| Brim over with the mounting of excess, | |
| Or whether you had felt in my caress | 5 |
| The fingertips of surfeit and of blight | |
| Attempting love, or whether your quick flight | |
| Was to another love, I will not guess. | |
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| I touch the pillow that has touched your head, | |
| And the brief candle that has lighted you | 10 |
| Sheds bleak and ashen light upon a face | |
| As absent as the moon … till to replace | |
| Your vanished arms, earth beckons me anew, | |
| And in her clasp something of you is dead. | | | | |
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