The glory of summer with its banks of rose
And fields of blossoms, and its moonlit night
Flooded with marvellous entrancing light,
And dewy plains whereover love's foot goes,
Is as our sacred love — wherethrough there glows
Passion, divine, and limitlessly bright:
Passion which deepens as the hours take flight;
Passion which scorns the pale thought of repose.

In all the life of summer we are one:
One in its splendour and triumphant power;
One with its every star and leaf and flower
And moon and wave and cloudless heaven and sun;

When spring's hand wakes the meadows and the plains,
And the bright cowslips in the wet low fields
Flash through the grass their shining yellow shields,
And the gay daffodils repay the rains,
And fern-fronds cluster in the high-banked lanes,
And, trembling at the sword the sun's hand wields,
Each morn the iron-footed North Wind yields,
While inch by inch the fragrant West Wind gains: —
Then, love, we too the promise of the air
Partake: we know that for our souls as well
Breathes forth in heaven the spring-tide, and the smell

We give to others, — give them day by day
Of our hearts' best: we strengthen and make whole:
We soothe the sorrows of the weary soul;
We pour our spirits in eager help away.
But for the strength our stronger souls convey
To theirs, what gift is ours? what glad return
Of strength is given us when our own hearts burn,
When we lie sleepless till the morning grey?

If we shield others, God behind us stands,
A strength perpetual, a surpassing power,
And guards us with invincible great hands;
He seeks us out in sorrow's loneliest hour

If thou wert dead, O love, — if thou wert dead, —
How could one summer sunset dare to gleam
Above the ripples of the rosied stream?
How could one rose blush into mocking red?
If death's wreath whitened round thy dear dark head
No leaf of bay would lure my glance again:
For thou art as the fountain of my strain,
Whence buoyant waters towards the plains are led.

If thou wert gone, O love, — if thou wert gone, —
How could the thoughtless heartless sun shine on!
How could the same chant fill the sea's dull soul

No more as separate souls we move along, —
The work of blending is divinely done;
From now till setting of our earthly sun
Joined are our voices in one wedding-song.
Thou art to me my whiteness, — I thy strong
Singer through whom thy laurel-wreath is won;
By thee my robe of victory is spun,
And mine are the swift thoughts that round thee throng.

Never, though all the ages stormed foam-white
Upon our path, should they the souls divide:
Through all eternity thou art my Bride
And I thy stronghold, — thou my soft delight, —

On lovers loving in the silent night
The holy spirit of spotless God descends
And with their souls magnificently blends,
Till as their lips touch lo! their souls are white,
And as their eyes meet lo! those eyes are bright
With the eternal power God's spirit sends:
Far-off from home, apart from fame or friends,
They rest in God's unutterable light.

O love, we were unspeakably alone
With Love and God: thou wast alone with me,
And I with God who claimed us for his own,
And thou with God, and I alone with thee, —

Thou art equal with me, — lo! thou art the breeze
That passes sighing o'er the water-way,
And I am the wild song within the seas
Driving up toward thee the sonorous spray
And glimmering sheet on sheet of sea-shine grew;
Thou art the moon above the tides at night
Glittering above them with most tender ray,
And I laugh underneath thy magic light
And clothe myself with limitless loud might
Of song: thou art the sun, — my free waves follow
Thine all-alluring splendour calm and bright,
Rising and falling fast in height and hollow;

An English flower thou art and English scenes
Hath given thee half thy beauty, and thy face
From the wind's mouth that o'er our mountains leans
Hath gathered half its bright and wholesome grace;
Our rose and lily in lips and cheeks I trace;
And all the splendour of untrammelled seas
Hath passed into thy spirit, — and thine embrace
Is like the English sweet-limbed June-breathed breeze
That clings around the clover-scented leas,
Copious and gracious, — and thy heart is high
And pure and wide and fearless, and thy knees

Rapture is holiness: God's lips are near,
O tender woman, when thy lips are close
And when thy sweet voice ringeth in mine ear, —
And when I touch thy bosom's soft white rose
Mine heart the eternal Mother Spirit knows,
And when thy beauty bathes my soul in bliss
It seems to me that through my spirit goes
The thrill of God's ineffable pure kiss:
Yea, having thee most surely I have this, —

Thine own soul is of Nature's realm a part,
And so we meet within that wide domain:
Our lips touch in the ripples of the rain,
Ocean's is our own ever-beating heart.
Thou crownest me with love, — I with mine Art
Crown thee, and with the music of my strain,
And with my inmost soul's thorn-crown of pain,
And with the dreams that through my spirit dart.

Beneath the sacred stars our spirits meet
In union wonderful and calm and sweet;
But most of all when music floods the place
With its strange amorous rapture passing fair,