| |
| AH! I shall kill myself with dreams! | |
| These dreams that softly lap me round | |
| Through trance-like hours in which meseems | |
| That I am swallowed up and drowned; | |
| Drowned in your love, which flows o’er me | 5 |
| As o’er the seaweed flows the sea. | |
| |
| In watches of the middle night, | |
| ’Twixt vesper and ’twixt matin bell, | |
| With rigid arms and straining sight, | |
| I wait within my narrow cell; | 10 |
| With muttered prayers, suspended will, | |
| I wait your advent—statue-still. | |
| |
| Across the convent garden walls | |
| The wind blows from the silver seas; | |
| Black shadow of the cypress falls | 15 |
| Between the moon-meshed olive-trees; | |
| Sleep-walking from their golden bowers, | |
| Flit disembodied orange flowers. | |
| |
| And in God’s consecrated house, | |
| All motionless from head to feet, | 20 |
| My heart awaits her heavenly Spouse, | |
| As white I lie on my white sheet; | |
| With body lulled and soul awake, | |
| I watch in anguish for your sake. | |
| |
| And suddenly, across the gloom, | 25 |
| The naked moonlight sharply swings; | |
| A Presence stirs within the room, | |
| A breath of flowers and hovering wings:— | |
| Your presence without form and void, | |
| Beyond all earthly joys enjoyed. | 30 |
| |
| My heart is hushed, my tongue is mute, | |
| My life is centred in your will; | |
| You play upon me like a lute | |
| Which answers to its master’s skill, | |
| Till passionately vibrating, | 35 |
| Each nerve becomes a throbbing string. | |
| |
| Oh, incommunicably sweet! | |
| No longer aching and apart, | |
| As rain upon the tender wheat, | |
| You pour upon my thirsty heart; | 40 |
| As scent is bound up in the rose, | |
| Your love within my bosom glows. | |
| |
