What right have I to thee! What claim in words to fashion!
Merely the right and claim of fiery love and passion
And tenderness outpoured:
Merely the right of Love the large-eyed world-redeemer;
Merely the desperate right of one wild-hearted dreamer,
And, if man doubt it, my most wakeful sword.

Merely the final right of love that knows no limit:
That gazes in death's eyes, but finds no power to dim it
Or dwarf it set therein:
Merely the right supreme by which when all the bowers
Besought the brow of God to wear their choicest flowers

“Since thou hast loved with love so wild and sweet
That life and time have faded quite away
And thou hast learned to count the hours of day
By love's heart's inner and triumphant beat
At the dear coming of thy lady's feet;
Since, when she is not with thee, dark and grey
Is all the world—thy service to repay
And thy soul's strong forlorn desire to meet,
I send a dream:” even so the Love-god said.
Then I was 'ware that round about my bed
Crowded dim forms of angels and of men,
And the next world shone clear as in a glass.

And art thou never tired of poems, and of singing?—
“Nay! not more tired than Spring of merry bright birds winging
Along the woods their way.
A woman never tires of love, so it be endless:
The summer, full of flowers, would feel forlorn and friendless
With one flower less on one acacia spray.

“A woman never tires of love, so it be tireless:
A woman never tires till passion's soul be fireless
And song's heart void of flame.
What, do my eyes not speak? Then must my lips make plainer
That Song is ever sweet, a gentle-eyed retainer

Yes: love me with thine eyes.—If thy soft lips are dreaming
Far other dreams than ours, yet through thine eyes are gleaming
The dreams my love-songs bring.
If summer's lips are sweet, yet summer's eyes are sweeter.
If summer's hands are swift, yet summer's eyes are fleeter.
In spring's sweet eyes resides the charm of spring.

If only in thine eyes I see thy sweet soul waking,
I am content; content though all my heart be breaking
For very love of thee.
It only content,—for then I know thy soul is listening.
Let thine eyes love me through eternity.

Yet when I strive to cease, yea when I think of ending,
It is but as a man whose eyes stoop downward, bending
Towards river-banks made sweet
With peppermint and thyme and tall reeds bright and gracious;
Who says, “I am content: I need no more the spacious
High hills and mountains for my wandering feet.”—

It is but as a man who merely loving rivers
And willow green that waves and alder dark that quivers
O'er blue tides tenderly,
Thinking to sing of these in some fair inland prison,
Lifts sudden eyes of awe when lo! before his vision

Never will any man be stricken deep
By thy sweet arrow of beauty quite as I
When after weary passionless long sleep
I looked up suddenly,—and thou wast nigh!
No man will ever love thy wondrous face
Quite as I love it. Though a thousand may
Admire thy beauty and thy girlish grace.
Still true it is that I am not as they.
They gaze and they pass on. But I adore.
They think they love. I love till time doth grow
Weary of rose-hung hill and wave-white shore:
Yea, till the Alps wax weary of their snow.
I stand alone in this—that no man brings

When fair love's fragrant world first opens out before us,
When first its sweet winds sing and golden stars shine o'er us,
Its flowers are so divine
We never never think of what shall follow after:
We only hear the wind's caressing lovely laughter;
We see no white crests on the far sea-line.

Then when the dark days come, and all the flowers are faded,
And the green thickets, dense with leafage once, invaded
By the bleak keen wind's breath,
We have the golden thought of summer days to cling to,
And love's old image deep within the heart to sing to,

The sea is very strong.—What is the power exceeding
In strength of deathless voice the storm-wind's passionate pleading
And mightier than the waves
As o'er the rocks they leap in thundering white-lipped millions
Or surge far out at sea by trillions and quadrillions
And chant death-choruses o'er countless graves?

What is the power that o'er the measureless sea-laughter
Triumphs, and scorns the scorn that shouts and follows after
Its fair triumphal feet?
Love: raising nigher to God the love-song of the willows

I, having loved thee as none other soul
Can love thee, stand before thy face to-day
And of thy womanhood this boon I pray;
That, as to thee I give myself heart-whole,
Committing self to Love's divine control,
So wilt thou give me—(thought too sweet to say!)—
Love that shall never change or pass away
But deepen onward towards a deathless goal.

Oh change not, if I change not! Let the springs
Of new fair flower and leaf that are to be
Find, ever, only strengthening love in me:
Let nobler gold suffuse love's white first wings:

May Love be guardian over heart and heart,
Though none beside us stand!
May love be with us, when we are apart,
And keep hand locked in hand!

Though thee I see not, yet thine eyes I see:
They keep me true and strong.
Though me thou see'st not, let the message be
Still with thee of my song.

May love keep watch between us!—May his strength
Keep both our spirits true!
Till, storm and thunder past, we reach at length
The sky's eternal blue.