73 MYSTERIES:
Of eager eyes that startle for the fear
Too dimly dear
Lest there come death, like passion, and fulfil
Their dreams of ill!
Oh! lift thy forehead to the night’s cool wind!
The meekest hind
That fears the noonday in her grove is bold
To seek the gold
So pale and perfect as the moon puts on:
The light is gone.
Hardly as yet one sees the crescent maid
Move, half afraid,
Into the swarthy forest of the air
And, breast made bare,
Gather her limbs about her for the chase
Through starry space,
And, while the lilies sway their heads, to bend _
Her bow, to send
A swift white arrow at some recreant star.
The sea is far
Dropped in the hollows of the swooning land.
Oh! hold my hand!
Lift up thy deep eyes to my face, and let
Our lips forget
The dumb dead hours before they met ‘together!
The snowbright weather .
Calls us beyond the grassy downs, to be
Beside the sea,
The slowly-breathing ocean of the south.
Oh, make thy mouth