Yes, I loved you from the first.
Dear, there is surprise
Blent with hunger and with thirst
In your eager eyes,
And you whisper: "Is it true?"—
Knowing that I always knew!
Let me tell you how it came:
Voices through the room;
Then one spoke to me your name
(Take this wild rose bloom—
I will place it in your hair)
And of you I was aware.
"She is of a slender grace,
Like my Maid of dreams!"
To myself I said—"Her face
With that beauty gleams—
Beauty of that One I know
In the Land of Long-Ago!"
Did you, dearest, understand
Why the scarlet grew
On my forehead, when my hand
Your fair fingers knew?
Oh, the world went very still
While on me you worked your will!
Worked your will? Do not deny;
For your heart was wise—
Ah, you shake your head and try
Vainly to disguise
What was on your lips to say
When we met that fateful day!
For from all eternity
We are pledged to love,
Bound in all our lives to be
True to what above
All the turmoil and the din
Strives that starry tryst to win.
Sit with me upon this stone
Underneath the bough;
Let the blossoms to us blown
Learn our ancient vow—
Vow we made before the stars
Strove to break Night's prison-bars.
Lift your head and meet my gaze.
Do you not recall
Somewhere in a golden haze,
Vistaed vast, a hall
Paved with diamond and domed
Blue above a fount that foamed
With the water from the well
Guarded, so they say,
By the angel Israfel?
Water of eternal bliss
Sprinkled on the lips that kiss!
There we lived before the suns
Led the planets up;
There we pledged the winged Ones
In a crystal cup,
Ere we left that pillared home
Through the field of Time to roam.