The Absence of Letters

I must choose life, and it is here with you
When with a hair-tossed flourish, and all bare,
You take on its stand the candle and walk through
Dark rooms to the unlit bathroom, where we
Like figures from some medieval mystery
Take a hot bath together, whispering, aware
As here we are wreathed in perfumed steam,
Of the whipping night outside and the long scream
Of the gale. There's nothing else to be satisfied
After our hours together, except we be
Cleansed and calmed and, fragrant, dried,
Then wrapped in dreamless sleep. And suddenly
Poor Yeats, you say, besotted with Maud Gonne!
All those letters! Between us, hardly one....