The Fearful Heart

Out on the hills you took my hand in yours
and I, afraid to misinterpret you
with care concealed my joy and did not pause
in my insipid talk about the view.
Another’s sonnets almost won and brought
us flowing back to mutual tenderness,
but fact on endless fact without a thought
I heaped, to drown your silent heart’s caress.
Is it a gap that is not there which slows
my tread and trust, or do you keep the gate
with diffident reserves of cool ‘hellos’
said not to join but mask and separate?
Tell me, my love, is selfish fear in me
all that keeps us in pain from unity?