Classic Poem

When in the morning I awaken first,
I find your head upon my shoulder laid,
Its clustered wealth of golden treasure burst
Forth of the band wherewith 'tis nightly stayed.
I hear the swallows twittering in their nest
In our wide-open, southern window hung,
And eke the lark, tired out with love and rest,
Shouting that song he has so often sung;
And many a lusty cock crows long and loud;
The languid, strolling breeze into our room
Flings stolen sweets from every flower and bud,
Easing his heavy burden of perfume.
Anon your eyes heave up their skyey lids
Welling with dawn: my raptured gazing bids
A blush auroral to your bright cheek speed,
A smile breaks forth, and it is day indeed.
Then forth to spend the pleasant summer day
That holds such infinite, supreme delight,
It makes us blame the sun's most lengthened stay
In summer's noon, and curse the scowling night,
Even as we pouted at the early beams
That darkened dismally our loving dreams.
Along the brown, crisp, withered woodland way
Bestrewn with greenest moss and maiden-hair,
That like an aisle's thick matting winding lay
Between the trees that pillar the blue air,
Hand clasped in hand and voice attuned to voice,
Chanting in borrowed words our own true love
With such divine, enraptured, Sapphic noise
As stills to listen blackbird, merle, and dove,
And with a tread heart-lightened to such ease
As would have added grace to Dian's bearing,
With eyes that lighten, locks free to the breeze,
Two waves of love, full-breasted, onward faring,
Through all the wood and swift across the lea
We hurry downward to the happy sea,
And cast ourselves on ocean's boundless stream,
Even as we have been flung into time's dream.
We lie and listen to the hissing waves,
Wherein our boat seems sharpening its keel,
Which on the sea's face all unthankful graves
An arrowed scratch as with a tool of steel.
We gaze right up into the simple blue,
We watch the wheeling, diving, sailing mew.
Oh then, we think if ever on our love
Vulture calamity shall flap his wing,
We will not wait until we have been hove
Half-eaten to despair, that wolfish thing;
But while our eyes are yet undimmed with tears,
And ere hope's ague has become quotidian,
We will forestall despair and blighting fears,
Sheltering in death our love's unstooped meridian:
For in our boat even at the sun's midnoon,
Like two discoverers we will straight embark,
And sail within his shadow, that bright boon,
A voyage parallel to his great arc,
And then in his red, western winding-sheet
Sink down with him to death's rest, deep and sweet.
Then in our naked godhood hand in hand
Into the joyous element we spring:
So light we are, thereon we almost stand,
But the sea clings us like a living thing.
And you are lovely swimming in the sea,
And like a creature born and bred therein;
But never did a thing so fair and free
Inhabit there, nor ever shall, I ween.
I bear you on my back a little way;
For meed you sing an ocean melody,
So sweetly in the splendour of the day
That all the rippling waves move silently;
And round about the air intensely listens,
And from his pride an eagle stoops to hear,
The sun your face with all his wonder glistens
And earth stands still; eternity is near;
Amazèd eyes of fish through ocean's wrinkles
Peer out like scattered stars in noon of night,
Nor air, nor bird breathes note, no wavelet tinkles;
All Nature is death-still to hear aright.
Enrobed again we set our sails for shore,
And having landed, in an arbour dine.
Then forth we bound—scarce half the day is o'er—
Our restless spirits more elate with wine.
We listen to the mowers' cheery song;
We laugh at clownish, soul-less labourers,
And shout upon the dead to come along
And leave their filthy shrouds and sepulchres.
Through narrow field-paths, threading close-ranked wheat,
And tasselled oats, and heavy-scented beans,
And beadsmen barley in obeisance meet
Sloping their cowled heads before the means
Of life in everything, the mighty sun;
Along rough roads where sweet wild roses blow
To-day in pomp, to-morrow dead and done,
Where in the ill-dug ditches cresses grow;
By hedges that have been unbarbered long;
Across a bridge the Romans built of yore
The river's banks buttressing, 'tis so strong,
With ancient ivy wholly mantled o'er,
We stray. You gather as we pass along
Wheat-ears, and barley-ears, and tinted vetches;
Wild rose-buds that the nightingale's sweet song
Ne'er listen to full-blown, for—beauteous wretches!—
The sun's kiss that the scent rapes from their breasts
And opes their blushing bosoms, kills them too;
Bride-bed of gnats, woodbine, that hedges vests;
Forget-me-nots, scarce as your eyes so blue;
A lone spring primrose waning now in June
As Hesper pales when onward comes the moon;
And little earnest daisies, single-eyed,
That worship heaven with faces glorified.
With fairy fingers than the flowers more fragrant
This spoil of fields you link into a chain;
On shaggy rocks with groping foot and vagrant,
I search for berries and a hatful gain.
With berries crushed we make ourselves shamefaced,
With berries pierced you string a grassy thread;
Then with your flower-wove chain I gird your waist,
And wreathe your flower-outshining, golden head,
And on my knees fall down and worship Thee,
My berry-stained, flower-crowned deity!
While from the very highest heaven of song,
And highest welkin-height a wing has measured,
Relays of larks their love-songs loud prolong
In surging notes that are in heaven treasured.
And then each quick descends from heaven's height;
His spirit swoons in such a high-pitched flight;
His serviceable wings, his tongue of fire,
His sun-enduring eyes wax faint and tire.
Where in the universe then must he wend?
Why, to that clime where languid poets use,
His mate's sweet bosom—she, his only muse,
As I to you my wearied spirit bend,
And drink deep draughts from those sweet fountains twin,
Your eyes, Castalia and Hippocrene.
Within a pool, deep in a pebbly strand,
The purest of the diamonds that are strung
Upon the glen, a bracelet of the land,
We see the heavens as in a mirror hung.
Oh, then we wonder upon what great loom
The warp and woof of heaven's tent were wrought!
Who reared its poles and gave such spacious room,
Who hung its deathless lamps, their bright fire brought?
I wonder at your beauty's perfectness;
I wonder at the blueness of the sky;
I wonder at the sun's bright steadfastness;
I wonder at the breeze that wanders by;
I wonder at the larks constantly singing,
And at the proper motion of the stream;
I wonder at the still, green grass up-springing,
And what sweet wonder fills your sweet day-dream;
I hear the rolling music of the spheres,
Wondering, and wondering at the cloven dell;
I wonder at the floating gossameres;
I see creation is a miracle.
We climb a hill, and there behold the sun
Sink down aglow with work serenely done.
And while we watch his orb fast disappearing,
Lo, from behind us like a sable sprite,
A lonely crow sails past, right sunward steering,
A seeming, silent pioneer of night;
Down the ravine a screaming curlew flies;
We are transfigured by the crimson skies.
Night comes and brings its honey-laden hours;
The pillaging wind flies with its scented spoil
Up from the robbed and sweetly moaning flowers;
Your silk hair nets it in a golden toil;
Love's night recedes, and love's day nearer lowers;
Love is the world's life-blood, and you and I
Two pulses throbbing in one melody.
Hark, from afar the corn-crake's mellowed call
Hush, in the grove the nightingale is singing!
The stars throb fast as they to earth would fall,
In their inwoven spheres love's music ringing.
Subdued almost, our sense can hardly tell
The music from the odour; it perceives
A sweetly-scented tune, a sweet-toned smell;
Love mingles everything its soul receives.
Lo, you and I with God are all alone,
And you and I with Him will now be one.