I came to this hill and watched you, full of pain,
And you hung there over that wood, just as
You do now and fill everything with light.
But nebulous and tremulous through the tears
That filled my eyes, your face appeared to me,
So troubled was my life; and is; nor has
It changed its style, beloved moon. And yet
It gives me pleasure to remember and
To count the stages of my sorrow. How
Pleasant it is, when one is young, and the path
Of hope is long and that of memory short,
To call to mind once more things from the past,
However sad, and though the pain endures.

Giacomo Leopardi

from Summer Requiem by Vikram Seth

it is so long since my heart has been with yours

shut by our mingling arms through
a darkness where new lights begin and
increase,
since your mind has walked into
my kiss as a stranger
into the streets and colours of a town–

that i have perhaps forgotten
how,always(from
these hurrying crudities
of blood and flesh)Love
coins His most gradual gesture,

and whittles life to eternity

–after which our separating selves become museums
filled with skilfully stuffed memories

Music when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense theuy quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped upon the lover’s bed;
And so thy thoughts when you are gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.