You can't remember, dearest
For your memory fades too fast,
The beginning of our loving
In the warm and foggy past.
When vapor from the tepid sea
Hung ever in the air,
And rivulets of pinkish mud
Went trickling past us there.
No, you can't remember even
Of the later lukewarm time
When you and I were wigglers,
Wiggling in the pale gray slime.
When our mouths were all our reason
And our bellies all our soul,
When we bred and died and rotted,
By the billion on the shoal.
Yet for ever and forever,
As the cooling waters flow
Past the green of long dead coal fields
Past the continents of snow.
Yes, forever and as truly
As the waters changeless are,
Have I fought for, sought and found thee
As tonight beneath the star.
Ever fearing, ever hoping
Ever winning thee at last,
But to lose thee to regain thee,
In the present from the past.
General George S Patton Jnr
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wigglers/
