Long and lovely, cool and white,
She lay beside me all the night.

Long and lovely, hushed and warm,
She touched me, thigh and breast and arm.

My body was one tremulous sense
Of her slight body's eloquence.

I was a drowned man, in the sea
Of her immaculate melody.

Drifting slowly down to sleep,
I longed to laugh, I feared to weep.

While hushed and lovely, cool and white,
She lay beside me all the night.

I do not love you, no, nor all your beauty,
Nor have I terror of your delicate magics;
I love only the silence that around you
Makes a low twilight.

Yet I desire that thunderous storms of passion
For all I am, should surge and clamor through you —
Scattering your follies and your delicate secrets —
Shaking your twilight. —

That like a temple-bell across the darkness
I should forever echo in your spirit,
With tones of legend and of high disaster
Haunting your silence.

You shall remember dimly,
Through mists of far-away,
Her whom, our lips set grimly,
We carried forth today.

But when in days hereafter
Unfolding time shall bring
Knowledge of love and laughter
And trust and triumphing —

Then from some face the fairest,
From some most joyous breast,
Garner what there is rarest
And happiest and best —

The youth, the light, the rapture
Of eager April grace —
And in that sweetness, capture
Your mother's far-off face.

And all the mists shall perish

Firelight danced along the uneven walls.
The rooms forgot that they were old and dank.
They caught the music of your light foot-falls,
They echoed with our laughter and our calls,
They blessed the food we ate, the wine we drank—

And they grew human, tender, sweet, and wise.
We loved them as we loved each other, then.
Now they are part of fading memories
As I forget your hands, your breast, your eyes …
But I can love no other home again.

My song is not for the old,
Whose day is done, whose blood is cold;
Nor for the safe is it,
Mummies of wealth and wit;
But it shall be understood
Of youth and the great life-lovers,
Lost adventurers and far rovers,
And the eagles of the brood,—
Evokers of diviner powers
Dark in the ether-wave,
Who heap the couch of life with flowers
And line with love the grave.

There are many things I love, my friends, and many things I hate;
There are things I simply reverence, things I abominate!
And I'd like to tell them all to you, outspoken, frank, and fair;
But 'twould take more time and patience than we've either got to spare.

So we'll drop externals totally, for Nature drew the plan;
We can't change it one iota, nor no other power can!
She placed thorns among the roses, gave the peach its bloom and fuzz,
Some of us made straight, some crooked: " Handsome is that handsome does. "

Lullaby , lullaby, child of the morning,
List to the matin bells hailing the day;
See the sun blithely the cloudlets adorning,
Ere beginning his journey from far down the bay.
Lovingly, tenderly, each cloud caressing
With glances of love-light and fingers of gold,
For each one doth hold for my darling a blessing,
That each hour of the day shall gently unfold.

Lullaby, lullaby, child of the even,
List to the vesper bells closing the day;
See the moon marshal the star-hosts of heaven
Ere beginning her journey from far down the bay.

My silver birch, white-velvet, far too strong
Your loveliness, that hides away from me
The dryad that I otherwise might see,
Bird of the dawn, too near, your liquid song
That does not to the unseen choir belong
Has drowned some seraph's morning melody!

Your autumn beaker, earth, your sparkling sea
Have done an older wine of heaven wrong.

O golden cup of earth, too brightly filled,
Can any drink you deeply, and still know
How constellations in their courses sing,
How our immediate dead about us go? —

I ask not the love of a heart that is burning
With all the wild fancies of youthful unrest,
That like the gay butterfly ever is turning
From blossom to blossom and never is blest.

I ask not the love of a soul that hereafter
May sigh to recall the delights that are flown,
For the life that is gleeful with song and with laughter
Would wither and die in the shade of my own.

The moon when surrounded by somber cloud billows
Doth shed a more tender and soul-soothing beam,
And the tide of affection is sweeter when willows

Oh, but she was bonny, and she loved the wave-water!
Often yet I picture her, running to the sea,
Slim against the sky-edge, like a lad; my own daughter...
Once, while I watched her so, a vision came to me.

I saw her there, under her beloved sea-water's keeping,
Not any more harmed than if under glass.
Not troubled by the waves, but lying quiet, sleeping,
Like a pearl in emerald case; my own child, my lass.

So it was they found her, in a crystal leisure,
Floating in a little space, sheltered by the wave,