Her waist shook to my arm.  She bowed her head
To mine in silence, and my fears had fled: 
   (Just then we heard a tolling bell.)
   Ah no; it is not right to tell;
      But I remember well

How dear the pressure of her warm young breast
Against my own, her home; how proud and blessed
   I stood and felt her trickling tears,
   While proudly murmuring in her ears
      The hope of distant years.

The rest I keep:  a holy charm, a source
Of secret strength and comfort on my course. 
   Her glory left my pathway bright;
   And stars on stars throughout the night
      Came blooming into light.

II.  DAWN.

O lily with the heavenly sun
   Shining upon thy breast! 
My scattered passions toward thee run,
   And poise to awful rest.

The darkness of our universe
   Smothered my soul in night;
Thy glory shone; whereat the curse
   Passed molten into light.

Raised over envy; freed from pain;
   Beyond the storms of chance: 
Blessed king of my own world I reign,
   Controlling circumstance.

III.  NOON.

Warble, warble, warble, O thou joyful bird! 
Warble, lost in leaves that shade my happy head;
Warble loud delights, laud thy warm-breasted mate,
And warbling shout the riot of thy heart,
Thine utmost rapture cannot equal mine.

Flutter, flutter, and flash; crimson-winged flower,
Parted from thy stem grown in land of dreams! 
Hover and tremble, flitting till thou findest,
Butterfly, thy treasure!  Yet thou never canst
Find treasure rich as my contented rest.

Hum on contentedly, thou wandering bee! 
Or pausing in chosen flowers drain their sweets;
From honeyed petal thou canst never sip
The sweetest sweet of sweets, as I from Love,—­
From Love’s warm mouth draw sweetest sweet of sweets.

Round, western wind, in grateful eddies sway,
Whisper deliciously the trembling flowers: 
O could I fill thy vacancy as I
Am filled with happiness, thou’dst breathe such sounds
Their blooms should wane and waver sick for love;
Thou’dst utter rarer secrets than are blown
With yonder bean-fields’ paradisal scents;—­
These bean-field odours, lightly sweet and faint,
That tell of pastures sloping down to streams
Murmuring for ever on through sunny lands;
Where mountains gleam and bank to silvery heights
That scarce the greatest angel’s wing can reach;
Where wondrous creatures float beneath the shade
Of growths sublime, unknown to mortal race;
Where hazes opaline lie tranced in dreams,
Where melodies are heard and die at will,
And little spirits make hot love to flowers.

Though broadly flaming, plain of yellow blossom,
A dazzling blaze of splendour in the noon! 
And brightening open heaven, ye shining clouds,
With lustrous light that casts the azure dim! 
Your radiance all united to the sun’s
Were darkness to that glory born in me.