Enemy

I made it up with my old enemy;

I thought our bitter quarrel at last was over,

Forgetting how a passion, told to die,

Will take to cover.

Ten years ago we made our peace; and still

In a gray, ghastly dream rehearsed by rote,

I wait, and dropping from a darkened stair,

Spring at his throat.

If in the twilight underneath the mind

A darkly lingering hate can so possess,

And for so long, one born and schooled as I

In gentleness,

How shall the hate of nations, bred by war,

Each one persuaded of some rankling wrong,

Lurk on through time and darkly rouse again?

Oh, long and long!