The Hour that we did not name

 The music drowned the honest word,

And midnight kept its own;

We spoke of trifles, lightly heard,

Yet felt what went unsown.

Your shoulder brushed mine—briefly so—

As though by chance we met;

Yet neither moved, nor chose to know

The thing we might regret.

No questions sought the heart beneath,

No answers crossed the air;

Your name, a little wreath of breath,

Dissolved and vanished there.

Without, the rain-wet pavement shone,

The sleeping city gleamed;

And all the world seemed built alone

To shelter what we dreamed.

You spoke of morning—“What shall be

When this strange hour is past?”

But dawn had scarcely touched the sea,

And night was fading fast.

So let tomorrow keep its claim,

Its reckonings and its light;

Tonight we need not give a name

To what belongs to night.

No histories of former days,

No maps of roads ahead;

The heart has wiser, quieter ways

Than all the words we said.

We stood as strangers might have stood,

Yet neither quite withdrew;

The silence understood us good—

And I, perhaps, understood you.

The room grew still; the hour grew late;

The world withdrew its sound.

And there we lingered, face to face,

While darkness gathered round.

Let reason wait beyond the door,

Let daylight ask its due;

Some moments ask for nothing more

Than being wholly true.

And when the final note had died,

And night gave way to day,

We kept the thing we never tried

To speak, nor name, nor say.