MID-RAPTURE

Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love;

Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes,

Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise,

Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above

All modulation of the deep-bowered dove,

Is like a hand laid softly on the soul;

Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control

Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:—

What word can answer to thy word,— what gaze

To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere

My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there

Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays?

What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove,

O lovely and beloved, O my love?