Since I have known thee, Dear, all life has grown
      An expectation.  As the swelling grain
      Trembles to harvesting, and earth in pain
    Travails till Spring is born, so felt alone
      Is the dumb reaching out of things unborn,
      The night’s gray promise of the amber morn.

    I long to taste my pleasures through thy lips,
      To sail with thee o’er foaming waves and feel
      Our spirits rise together with the reel
    Of waters and the wavering land’s eclipse;
      To see thy fair hair damp with salt sea-spray
      And in thine eyes the wildness of the way.

    I long to share my woods with thee, to fly
      To some black-hearted forest where the trail
      Of mortals lingers not,—­to hear the gale. 
    Sweep round us with a shuddering ecstasy,
      To feel, night’s tumult passed, the cool soft hand
      Of the untroubled dawn move o’er the land.

    To swim with thee far out into the bay,
      A trembling glitter on the waves, the shore
      Glowing with noontide fervor, nevermore
    To fear the treacherous depths, though long the way. 
      Sweet beyond words the sighs that breathe and blow,
      The moist salt kisses, and the glad warm glow.

    And when the unrest, the vague desires that rush
      Over our lives and may not be denied,—­
      Gone in the tasting,—­lure us where the tide
    Of men sweeps on, let us forget the hush
      Together, and in city madness drain
      Our cup of pleasure to its dregs of pain.

    Ever I need thee.  Incomplete and poor
      This life of mine.  Yet never dream my soul
      Craves the old peace.  Till I may have the whole
    My joy is my abiding, and what more
      Of dreams and waking bliss the Fates allow
      Comes as a gift of Love’s great overflow.

Song.

    Deep in the green bracken lying,
      Close by the welcoming sea,
    Dream I, and let all my dreaming
      Drift as it will, Love, to thee.

    Sated with splendid caresses
      Showered by the sun in his pride,
    Scorched by his passionate kisses
      Languidly ebbs the tide.

Life’s Joys.

    I have been pondering what our teachers call
      The mystery of Pain; and lo! my thought
      After it’s half-blind reaching out has caught
    This truth and held it fast.  We may not fall
      Beyond our mounting; stung by life’s annoy,
      Deeper we feel the mystery of Joy.

    Sometimes they steal across us like a breath
      Of Eastern perfume in a darkened room,
      These joys of ours; we grope on through the gloom
    Seeking some common thing, and from its sheath
      Unloose, unknowing, some bewildering scent
      Of spice-thronged memories of the Orient.