We saw not where a shadow loomed, That, from its first auroral hour, Our happy paradise fore-doomed; A Fate within whose icy power Love blooms as helpless as a flower.
Its shadow by the dial stands, The golden moments shudder past, Soon shall he smite apart our hands, In vain we hold each other fast, And the last kiss must come at last.
The last! then be it charged with fire, With sacred passion wild and white, With such a glory of desire, We two shall vanish in its light, And find each other in God's sight.
I wore my heart upon my sleeve, Tis most unwise, they say, to do-- But then how could I but believe The foolish thing was safe with you? Yet, had I known, 'twas safer far With wolves and tigers, the wild sea Were kinder to it than you are-- Sweetheart, how you must laugh at me!
Yet am I glad I did not know That creatures of such tender bloom, Beneath their sanctuary snow, Were such cold ministers of doom; For had I known, as I began To love you, ere we flung apart, I had not been so glad a man As holds his lady to his heart.
And am I lonely here to-night With empty eyes, the cause is this, Your face it was that gave me sight, My heart ran over with your kiss. Still do I think that what I laid Before the altar of your face, Flower of words that shall not fade, Were worthy of a moment's grace;
Some thoughtless, lightly dropped largesse, A touch of your immortal hand Laid on my brow in tenderness, Though you could never understand. And yet with hungered lips to touch Your feet of pearl and in your face To look a little was over-much-- In heaven is no such fair a place As, broken-hearted, at your feet To lie there and to kiss them, sweet.
My head is at your feet, Two Cytherean doves, The same, O cruel sweet, As were the Queen of Love's; They brush my dreaming brows With silver fluttering beat, Here in your golden house, Beneath your feet.
No man that draweth breath Is in such happy case: My heart to itself saith-- Though kings gaze on her face, I would not change my place; To lie here is more sweet, Here at her feet.
As one in a green land Beneath a rose-bush lies, Two petals in his hand, With shut and dreaming eyes, And hears the rustling stir, As the young morning goes, Shaking abroad the myrrh Of each awakened rose; So to me lying there Comes the soft breath of her,-- O cruel sweet!-- There at her feet.