Classic Poem

The voice of my lover, breathing above my eyelids,
" I love you, love you! "
It is like woodland water making music over mosses;
It is like leaping water, high in the sun;
It is like chimes out of midnight,
Rainbows out of turbulence and gloom.
The voice of my lover, whispering against my neck,
" I love you, love you! " It is like sudden violets in hidden places,
Like golden roses, shedding velvet upon my heart;
It is like swift fire out of Heaven, blinding fire
From which my soul may never recover;
It is like lightning and angel chanting
The voice of my lover, liquid, alluring, saying unto me,
" I love you, love you! " It is like autumn, surging with many colors,
The torch of sunset, flaring crimson above the world.
It is like tumult and crying;
A storm shaking the hills, rooting up trees and lashing the sea into fury.
The voice of my lover, saying unto me, " I love you, love you! "
It is even like unto a harvest moon, ripe and lucent in the heavens.
It is like a hill crowned with stars; mountains with dawn upon their peaks.
I, who have been a law unto my own being;
I, who have sworn never to obey other than the mandates of my higher reason;
I, who have never yielded to mere emotion,
When my lover says, " I love you, love you! " I, even I, am grown weak as any reed;
I am grown gloriously weak and glad to do his bidding.
Say it to me, lover!
Breathe it above my eyelids, over and over;
Breathe it against my temples, where God listens and responds;
Make it known to me in pressure as of velvet;
Make it known to me in kisses budding out of Heaven.
The voice of my own love, saying to me,
" I love you, love you! "
I am altogether undone by it,
And by it am I born into a new kingdom.