II

Once you could see,

The white moon show like a breast revealed

By the slipping shawl of stars.

Could see the small stars tremble

As the heart beneath did wield

Systole, diastole.

All the lovely macrocosm

Was woman once to you,

Bride to your groom.

No tree in bloom

But it leaned you a new

White bosom.

And always and ever

Soft as a summering tree

Unfolds from the sky, for your good,

Unfolded womanhood;

Shedding you down as a tree

Sheds its flowers on a river.

I saw your brows

Set like rocks beside a sea of gloom,

And I shed my very soul down into your thought;

Like flowers I fell, to be caught

On the comforted pool, like bloom

That leaves the boughs.