Collected Works (Vol. II)

76 ALICE: AN ADULTERY Two faces and two bosoms, breathing slowly In tune and time with the sea’s hymn below, Breathing in peace of love, mighty and holy, Fearing to fuse, and longing—be it so! And the world’s pulse stops, as God bends him lowly To hear and know. ....... For not the heights of heaven shall exalt her Whose heart is full of love’s dumb deity, Nor harp-strings lift me, nor the sound of psalter, Whose love is merged and molten into thee, Not incense sweeter be by shrine or altar For youandme.......... But like dove’s eyes where glamour lies a-dwelling, Like sweet well-water rising in the well, Strong steep black currents thrust up, flooding, welling, Into the moonlight, swift, adorable,— So kisses cluster, so our bosoms swelling Abide and dwell... ....... Yet the twin faces, like Madonnas, meeting, Fear and draw back and gaze a little space ; Fear, lest they lose the moonlight frail and fleeting, Lose their own beauty in their own embrace, But feel how gladdening hearts and bosoms beating Kindle the face But not for long shall lilies strive with roses, Nor fear be fearful, nor delight repose, Nor love retire; the woodland cleaves and closes Round heads an aureole hides, a rainbow shows. A swifter shape of fire cleaves us, encloses Rosebud and rose......... Mouth unto mouth! O fairest ! Mutely lying, Fire lambent laid on water,—O! the pain ! Kiss me, O heart, as if we both were dying ! Kiss, as we could not ever kiss again ! Kiss me, between the music of our sighing, Lightning and rain ! Not only as the kiss of tender lovers— Let mingle also the sun’s kiss to sea, Also the wind’s kiss to the bird that hovers, The flower’s kiss to the earth’s deep greenery. . All elemental love closes and covers Both you and me. All shapes of silence and of sound and seeing, All lives of Nature molten into this, The moonlight waking and the shadows fleeing, Strange sorcery of unimagined bliss, All breath breathing in ours; mingled all being Into the kiss, THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DAY. ‘* The ship is in her trim; the merry wind Blows fair from land.” Comedy of Errors. QUITE careless whether golden gales of wind Fling our boat forward, or the storm and spark Of lightning lamp or shroud us in the dark, Careless if ever land again we find, Careless of all things (this love being blind), We put tosea. O gladly stand and mark The diamond headland fall behind our barque, Wrapped in shrine-shadow of love’s central mind ! We are alone to-day on the strange sea, Divider of the dawn’s divinity From sunset’s splendour: our: eternal noon