Slaked is the burning desert-thirst,
And thou art wholly mine;
Stilled is the heart I thought must burst
When throbbing close to thine.

Calmed the strange sense of vague unrest
That shipwrecked mariners feel,
Ere, through the tropic breaker's crest,
They launch their untried keel,

Framed of the lordly tree which gave
Them shelter from the blast,
When, beachward high, the strong-armed wave
Their senseless bodies cast.

Like them, my heart, life's bleakest heath
In darkness doomed to rove,
Found rest and woke to bliss beneath
The mantle of thy love.

With fire they carved the giant bole
Unconscious of its fate;
With flame I shaped thy stately soul
To carry mine as freight.

In it, through passion's surges driven,
I float beyond their roar;
And we, O Love! are nearer Heaven
Than when we left the shore.