His Lady of the Sonnets

by Robert Winkworth Norwood

Beholding you, I am Endymion,
Lost and immortal in Latmian dreams;
With Dian bending down to look upon
Her shepherd, whose æonian slumber seems
A moment, twinkling like a starry gem
Among the jewels of her diadem.

III

If I could tell why, when you look at me,
Dreams that have visited half wakeful nights
Re-form and shape themselves, and Pisgah-sights
Fill one far valley to a purple sea;
And white-domed cities rise with porphyry,
Jacinth and sapphire gates, beneath the heights,
Rose-flamed within the dawn where Phœbus smites
Earth with his heel—claiming its lord to be;

Then would you know what my heart seeks to say
And falters ere sufficient words be found:
How all the voiceless night and vocal day
Love looks on you and trembles into sound;
Love longs and pleads for his one moment's bliss—
You and him mingled in a silent kiss.

IV

My love is like a spring among the hills
Whose brimming waters may not be confined,
But pour one torrent through the ways that wind
Down to a garden; there the rose distills
Its nectar; there a tall, white lily fills
Night with anointing of two lovers, blind,
Dumb, deaf, of body, spirit, and of mind
From breathless blending of far-sundered wills.

Long ere my love had reached you, hard I strove
To send its torrent through the barren fields;
I wanted you, the lilied treasure-trove
Of innocence, whose dear possession yields
Immortal gladness to my heart that knows
How you surpass the lily and the rose.