Your touch on my hand is fire,
Your lips on my lips are flowers.
My darling, my one desire,
Dear crown of my days and hours.
Dear crown of each hour and day
Since ever my life began.
Ah! leave me—ah! go away—
We two are woman and man.
To lie in your arms and see
The stars melt into the sun;
Till there is no you and me,
Since you and I are one.
To loose my soul to your breath,
To bare my heart to your life—
It is death, it is death, it is death!
I am not your wife.
The hours will come and will go,
But never again such an hour
When the tides immortal flow
And life is a flood, a flower . . .
Wait for the ring; it is strong,
It has a magic of might
To make all that was splendid and wrong
Sordid and right.
PHILOSOPHY
The sulky sage scarce condescends to see
This pretty world of sun and grass and leaves;
To him ’tis all illusion—only he
Is real amid the visions he perceives.
No sage am I, and yet, by Love’s decree,
To me the world’s a masque of shadows too,
And I a shadow also—since to me
The only real thing in life is—you.
THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME
Before your feet,
My love, my sweet,
Behold! your slave bows down;
And in his hands
From other lands
Brings you another crown.
For in far climes,
In bygone times,
Myself was royal too:
Oh, I have been
A king, my queen,
Who am a slave for you!