English Poems, Volume 02 (of 2)

Set ope all shutters, that the day come in Like a sea or a din! Let not a nook of useless shade compel Thoughts of the night, or tell The mind's comparing that some things are sad, For this day all are glad! 'Tis morn, 'tis open morn, the full sun is Risen from out the abyss Where last night lay beyond the unseen rim Of the horizon dim. Now is the bride awaking. Lo! she starts To feel the day is home Whose too-near night will put two different hearts To beat as near as flesh can let them come. Guess how she joys in her feared going, nor opes Her eyes for fear of fearing at her joy. Now is the pained arrival of all hopes. With the half-thought she scarce knows how to toy.
Oh, let her wait a moment or a day And prepare for the fray For which her thoughts not ever quite prepare! With the real day's arrival she's half wroth. Though she wish what she wants, she yet doth stay. Her dreams yet merged are In the slow verge of sleep, which idly doth The accurate hope of things remotely mar.
Part from the windows the small curtains set Sight more than light to omit! Look on the general fields, how bright they lie Under the broad blue sky, Cloudless, and the beginning of the heat Does the sight half ill-treat! The bride hath wakened. Lo! she feels her shaking Heart better all her waking! Her breasts are with fear's coldness inward clutched And more felt on her grown, That will by hands other than hers be touched And will find lips sucking their budded crown. Lo! the thought of the bridegroom's hands already Feels her about where even her hands are shy, And her thoughts shrink till they become unready. She gathers up her body and still doth lie. She vaguely lets her eyes feel opening. In a fringed mist each thing Looms, and the present day is truly clear But to her sense of fear. Like a hue, light lies on her lidded sight, And she half hates the inevitable light.
Open the windows and the doors all wide Lest aught of night abide, Or, like a ship's trail in the sea, survive What made it there to live! She lies in bed half waiting that her wish Grow bolder or more rich To make her rise, or poorer, to oust fear, And she rise as a common day were here. That she would be a bride in bed with man The parts where she is woman do insist And send up messages that shame doth ban From being dreamed but in a shapeless mist. She opes her eyes, the ceiling sees above Shutting the small alcove, And thinks, till she must shut her eyes again, Another ceiling she this night will know, Another house, another bed, she lain In a way she half guesses; so She shuts her eyes to see not the room she Soon will no longer see.