Friendship After Love

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
         Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
         In the intensity of its own fires,
There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days,
Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
         So after Love has led us, till he tires
         Of his own throes and torments and desires,
Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze
He beckons us to follow, and across
         Cool, verdant vales we wander free from care.
         Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?
Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?
         We do not wish the pain back, or the heat;
         And yet, and yet, these days are incomplete.