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(From London Nights, 1895)
WHY is it I remember yet | |
| You, of all women one has met | |
| In random wayfare, as one meets | |
| The chance romances of the streets, | |
| The Juliet of a night? I know | 5 |
| Your heart holds many a Romeo. | |
| And I, who call to mind your face | |
| In so serene a pausing-place, | |
| Where the bright pure expanse of sea, | |
| The shadowy shore’s austerity, | 10 |
| Seem a reproach to you and me, | |
| I too have sought on many a breast | |
| The ecstasy of love’s unrest, | |
| I too have had my dreams, and met | |
| (Ah me!) how many a Juliet. | 15 |
| Why is it, then, that I recall | |
| You, neither first nor last of all? | |
| For, surely as I see to-night | |
| The phantom of the lighthouse light, | |
| Against the sky, across the bay, | 20 |
| Fade, and return, and fade away, | |
| So surely do I see your eyes | |
| Out of the empty night arise, | |
| Child, you arise and smile to me | |
| Out of the night, out of the sea, | 25 |
| The Nereid of a moment there, | |
| And is it seaweed in your hair? | |
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| O lost and wrecked, how long ago, | |
| Out of the drowning past, I know | |
| You come to call me, come to claim | 30 |
| My share of your delicious shame. | |
| Child, I remember, and can tell | |
| One night we loved each other well, | |
| And one night’s love, at least or most, | |
| Is not so small a thing to boast. | 35 |
| You were adorable, and I | |
| Adored you to infinity, | |
| That nuptial night too briefly borne | |
| To the oblivion of morn. | |
| Ah! no oblivion, for I feel | 40 |
| Your lips delirously steal | |
| Along my neck, and fasten there; | |
| I feel the perfume of your hair, | |
| I feel your breast that heaves and dips, | |
| Desiring my desirous lips, | 45 |
| And that ineffable delight | |
| When souls turn bodies, and unite | |
| In the intolerable, the whole | |
| Rapture of the embodied soul. | |
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| That joy was ours, we passed it by; | 50 |
| You have forgotten me, and I | |
| Remember you thus strangely, won | |
| An instant from oblivion. | |
| And I, remembering, would declare | |
| That joy, not shame, is ours to share, | 55 |
| Joy that we had the frank delight | |
| To choose the chances of one night, | |
| Out of vague nights, and days at strife, | |
| So infinitely full of life. | |
| What shall it profit me to know | 60 |
| Your heart holds many a Romeo? | |
| Why should I grieve, though I forget | |
| How many another Juliet? | |
| Let us be glad to have forgot | |
| That roses fade, and loves are not, | 65 |
| As dreams, immortal, though they seem | |
| Almost as real as a dream. | |
| It is for this I see you rise, | |
| A wraith, with starlight in your eyes, | |
| Where calm hours weave, for such a mood | 70 |
| Solitude out of solitude; | |
| For this, for this, you come to me | |
| Out of the night, out of the sea. | |
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