On Melancholy Poem by Hal Caufield

I have never
Kissed your lips,
Or press my bare chest
Against your breasts.
I have but loved you
From the distance
Of my world;
While you go about yours,
Perhaps not even realizing
How much I long for and love
You, for everything you are.

So it is not strange,
My love, that there are
Days when the vastness
Of the abyss between
Us brings me melancholy.

Sweet, sweet melancholy!
Although it stings the heart,
I never let it bring me down.
For I know that the day,
The hour are not far,
When, as the Magic 8-Ball says,
Our bodies and souls will
Forever be entwined.

So on those days
That I am affected by
Melancholy blues,
And to see you hurts
Because as close
As you may be
My touch cannot reach you,
I rejoice in the thought
Of our embrace,
Made sweeter still
By the melancholy suffered
On these bluest days.

Melancholy cannot depress me.
Because I know that
When I drink from your cup,
It will be made more satisfying still
By today’s unquenched thirst.
And when you say,
“I Love you”
As I know you will,
My heart will burst with
The passion and longing
Melancholy in part has brought.
Because you see my darling,
Like Keats I know, that
“In very temple of delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her
Sovarn shrine”!