The Concert

No, I will go alone. / I will come back when it's over. / Yes, of course I love you. / No, it will not be long. / Why may you not come with me?— / You are too much my lover. / You would put yourself / Between me and song. // If I go alone, / Quiet and suavely clothed, / My body will die in its chair, / And over my head a flame, / A mind that is twice my own, / Will mark with icy mirth / The wise advance and retreat / Of armies without a country, / Storming a nameless gate, / Hurling terrible javelins down / From the shouting walls of a singing town / Where no women wait! // Armies clean of love and hate, / Marching lines of pitiless sound / Climbing hills to the sun and hurling / Golden spears to the ground! // Up the lines a silver runner / Bearing a banner whereon is scored / The milk and steel of a bloodless wound / Healed at length by the sword! // You and I have nothing to do with music. / We may not make of music a filigree frame, / Within which you and I, / Tenderly glad we came, / Sit smiling, hand in hand. // Come now, be content. / I will come back to you, I swear I will; / And you will know me still. / I shall be only a little taller / Than when I went.