Along my body, waking while I sleep, Sharp to the kiss, cold to the hand as snow, The scar of this encounter like a sword - Edna St. Vincent Millay

The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.

Oh, friend, forget not, when you fain would note
In me a beauty that was never mine,
How first you knew me in a book I wrote,
How first you loved me for a written line....

She had a horror he would die at night.
And sometimes when the light began to fade
She could not keep from noticing how white
The birches looked — and then she would be afraid,
Even with a lamp, to go about the house
And lock the windows; and as night wore on
Toward morning, if a dog howled, or a mouse
Squeaked in the floor, long after it was gone
Her flesh would sit awry on her. By day
She would forget somewhat, and it would seem
A silly thing to go with just this dream
And get a neighbor to come at night and stay.
But it would strike her sometimes, making tea:
_She had kept that kettle boiling all night long, for company._