words, and whose ways,
      O lover, learn,
      Swerve not, or turn
    Aside for prayers, or broken-hearted praise: 
  The young moon looks not back as on she goes. 
  On their own terms, O lover!—­Girl, Moon, Rose.

  A warning

  We that were born, beloved, so far apart,
    So many seas and lands,
  The gods, one sudden day, joined heart to heart,
    Locked hands in hands,
  Distance relented and became our friend,
  And met, for our sakes, world’s end with world’s end. 
  The earth was centred in one flowering plot
  Beneath thy feet, and all the rest was not.

  Now wouldst thou rend our nearness, and again
    Bring distance back, and place
  Poles and equators, mountain range and plain,
    Between me and thy face,
  Undoing what the gods divinely planned;
  Heart, canst thou part? hand, loose me from thy hand? 
  Not twice the gods their slighted gifts bestow;
  Bethink thee well, beloved, ere thou dost go.

  Primum Mobile

  When thou art gone, then all the rest will go;
    Mornings no more shall dawn,
  Roses no more shall blow,
    Thy lovely face withdrawn—­
  Nor woods grow green again after the snow;
    For of all these thy beauty was the dream,
  The soul, the sap, the song;
    To thee the bloom and beam
  Of flower and star belong,
    And all the beauty thine of bird and stream.

  Thy bosom was the moonrise, and the morn
    The roses of thy cheek,
  No lovely thing was born
    But of thy face did speak—­
  How shall all these endure, of thee forlorn? 
    The sad heart of the world grew glad through thee,
  Happy, men toiled and spun
    That had thy smile for fee;
  So flowers seek the sun,
    So singing rivers hasten to the sea.

  Yet, though the world, bereft, should bleakly bloom,
    And wanly make believe
  Against the general doom,
    For me the earth you leave
  Shall be for ever but a haunted room;
    Yea! though my heart beat on a little space,
  When thou art strangely gone
    To thy far hiding-place,
  Soon shall I follow on,
    Out-footing Death to over-take thy face.

  The last tryst

  The cowbells wander through the woods,
    ’Neath arching boughs a stream slips by,
  In all the ferny solitude
    A chipmunk and a butterfly
    Are all that is—­and you and I.

  This summer day, with all its flowers,
    With all its green and gold and blue,
  Just for a little while is ours,
    Just for a little—­I and you: 
    Till the stars rise and bring the dew.

  One perfect day to us is given;
    Tomorrow—­all the aching years;
  This is our last short day in heaven,
    The last of all our kisses nears—­
    Then life too arid even for tears.

  Here, as the day ends, we two end,
    Two that were one, we said, for ever;
  We had Eternity to spend,
    And laughed for joy to know that never
    Two so divinely one could sever.