Love Declared
I LOOKED, she drooped, and neither spake, and cold,We stood, how unlike all forecasted thoughtOf that desirèd minute! Then I leanedDoubting; whereat she lifted—oh, brave eyesUnfrighted:—forward like a wind-blown flameCame bosom and mouth to mine!That falling kissTouching long-laid expectance, all went upSuddenly into passion; yea, the nightCaught, blazed, and wrapt us round in vibrant fire.
Time’s beating wing subsided, and the windsCaught up their breathing, and the world’s great pulseStayed in mid-throb, and the wild train of lifeReeled by, and left us stranded on a hush.This moment is a statue unto LoveCarved from a fair white silence.Lo, he standsWithin us—are we not one now, one, one roof,His roof, and the partition of weak fleshGone down before him, and no more, for ever?—Stands like a bird new-lit, and as he lit,Poised in our quiet being; only, onlyWithin our shaken hearts the air of passion,Cleft by his sudden coming, eddies stillAnd whirs round his enchanted movelessness.
A film of trance between two stirrings! Lo,It bursts; yet dream’s snapped links cling round the limbsOf waking: like a running evening streamWhich no man hears, or sees, or knows to run,(Glazed with dim quiet), save that there the moonIs shattered to a creamy flicker of flame,Our eyes’ sweet trouble were hid, save that the loveTrembles a little on their impassioned calms.