I knew it the first of the season
I knew it the same at the end,
That you and your love were plighted,
That you couldnt just be my friend.

Couldn’t we sit in the twilight,
Couldn’t we walk on the shore
With only a pleasant friendship
To bind us, and nothing more.

There was not a word of folly
Spoken between us two,
Though we lingered oft in the mountains
Till the ferns were wet with dew.

We touched on a thousand subjects
The moon and the worlds above,
And our talk was tinctured with science,
And everything else, save love.

What would you have done, I wonder,
Had I gone on my knees to you
And told you my passionate story,
There in the dusk and the dew.

I fought with my heart and conquered,
I hid my wounds from sight;
I was going away in the morning,
So I said a calm good-night.

But now when I sit in the twilight,
Or when I walk by the sea
That friendship, quite platonic,
Comes surging over me.