Who the thin texture of her hand
But with a hand’s touch understand? 
Shaped in eternity were these
Body’s miracles, where the seas
Their continuous rhythm learned,
And the stars in their bright order burned. 
From stars and seas was motion caught
When flesh, blood, bone and skin were wrought
Into swift lovely liveliness. 
      Oh, but beauty less and less
Than beauty grows.  The cheeks fall in,
Colour dies from the smooth skin,
And muscles slack and bones are brittle;
Veins and arteries little by little
Delay the tides of the blood: 
That is a ditch that was a flood. 
Then all but dry bones disappears,
White bones that lie a hundred years
Cheated of resurrection.... 
Where is that beauty gone? 
Escaped even while we watched it so,
And none guessed the way it would go? 
Only it’s fled, and here alone
Lie blood and skin and flesh and bone. 
Where is the beauty that was here? 
—­Nowhere, everywhere.

TAKE CARE, TAKE CARE

Bind up, bind up your dark bright hair
  And hide the smouldering sunken fire. 
Let it be held no more than fair,
Nor yourself guess how rare, how rare
  Its movement, colour and deep fire.

Your eyes they have their consciousness,
  Your lips their grave reflective smile,
Your hands their cunning for distress: 
Your hair has only beauteousness
  And hid flame for its only guile.

That glowing hair on shoulders white
  Is pride past sum:  take care, take care! 
Even to dream of wish’d delight
Too much perturbs the ebb of night—­
  Bind up, bind up your burning hair!

NEARNESS

Thy hand my hand,
Thine eyes my eyes,
All of thee
Caught and confused with me: 
My hand thy hand
My eyes thine eyes,
All of me
Sunken and discovered anew in thee....

No:  still
A foreign mind,
A thought
By other yet uncaught;
A secret will
Strange as the wind: 
The heart of thee
Bewildering with strange fire the heart in me.

Hand touches hand,
Eye to eye beckons,
But who shall guess
Another’s loneliness? 
Though hand grasp hand
Though the eye quickens,
Still lone as night
Remain thy spirit and mine, past touch and sight.

THE SECOND FLOOD

How could I know, how could I guess
That here was your great happiness—­
In mine?  And how could I know
Your love infinite must grow?

Suddenly at dawn I wake
To see the cruse of colour break
Over the East, and then the gray
Creep up with light of common day ... 
No, no, no! again that bright
Flashing, flushing, flooding light
Leading on day, until I ache
With love to see the dark world wake.