To Affirm this Bond

We cannot unlove.

If for you I preserve a quiet hope,

Apollo’s calm amid the shouts of Lepithae and satyrs,

do not imagine I scorn your struggle

to affirm this bond.

And if I foreknow the betrayal

you will yet commit,

it is as the gods know, not reaching hand

to force the balance,

nor unaware that man’s brief and mortal will

is grief.