LOVE DECLARED.

I looked, she drooped, and neither spake, and cold,

We stood, how unlike all forecasted thought

Of that desir-ed minute! Then I leaned

Doubting; whereat she lifted — oh, brave eyes

Unfrighted:— forward like a wind-blown flame

Came bosom and mouth to mine!

That falling kiss

Touching long-laid expectance, all went up

Suddenly into passion; yea, the night

Caught, blazed, and wrapt us round in vibrant fire.

Time's beating wing subsided, and the winds

Caught up their breathing, and the world's great pulse

Stayed in mid-throb, and the wild train of life

Reeled by, and left us stranded on a hush.

This moment is a statue unto Love

Carved from a fair white silence.

Lo, he stands

Within us — are we not one now, one, one roof,

His roof, and the partition of weak flesh

Gone down before him, and no more, for ever?—

Stands like a bird new-lit, and as he lit,

Poised in our quiet being; only, only

Within our shaken hearts the air of passion,

Cleft by his sudden coming, eddies still

And whirs round his enchanted movelessness.

A film of trance between two stirrings! Lo,

It bursts; yet dream's snapped links cling round the limbs

Of waking: like a running evening stream

Which no man hears, or sees, or knows to run,

( Glazed with dim quiet ), save that there the moon

Is shattered to a creamy flicker of flame,

Our eyes’ sweet trouble were hid, save that the love

Trembles a little on their impassioned calms.