Darling! as you lie there sleeping, with the holy angels keeping
Watch and ward around your pillow, shading it with wings of gold;
Sentinels whose happy duty is to guard your grace and beauty;
While you lie there dreaming, seeming all your sweet self, chaste and cold;
Who would think that the true treasure of that casket, beyond measure
Rich, and fair, and finished, is not where the lovely casket lies?
That they see the palace-portal set ajar, and the Immortal
Gone forth from its rosy gateway, locking satin lids on eyes?

Yet so is it! Fairest woman! and what 's there is but the human
Robe and raiment which your spirit wears, to walk with all the rest,
Regal raiment! ah, the silky wavelets of that hair! the milky
Whiteness of the brow! the neck! the soft hands folded o'er the breast!
As a Queen's grace seems to linger in the pearl-strings which her finger
Loosens — so thy soul leaves glory on that sleeping form of thine;
But the beautiful still body is not that which most I worship,
And your soul, my Pride! my Bride! — is here, and talking low with mine.

All because, at such an hour, Love hath so much charm and power,
Life hath so much deeper knowledge of its march and mystery,
That — so soon as I invite it — coy no longer, but delighted
Forth thy sweet and stately spirit comes for fellowship with me!
And, beside my spirit sitting, thoughts with deep thoughts interknitting,
Speaking plainly in a silence, clearer, dearer far than speech,
Mine grows all thine inmost being; and I see thee — more than seeing —
I and thou as one together; blended, ended, each in each.