WOULD that a single sigh could fall From lips so still so long, Float o'er the sea and tell thee all, More inwardly than song! A breath enchanted and intense From faint impassioned hours, Hesperian with an odorous sense Of Orotava's flowers! On hair and eyes 'twould sink and rise, Soft on thy lips would die, And whisper in the speech of sighs, "Oh wise one! thou and I! "Not winds alone, my love, my own, Not only sea disparts, But Life and Fate, the loves too late, The twin divided hearts. "And day by day," the sigh would say, With scarce surviving breath, "Near and more near, a Form, a Fear:— Oh darling, is it Death?" WHEN in late twilight slowly thou hast strayed Thro' wet syringas and a black-green shade, With one communing so, that each with each Knew not the interludes of ebbing speech, Marked not the gaze which thro' the dimness fell On beauty in the daylight loved so well:— Since in that hour the still souls held as nought The body's beauty or brain's responsive thought, Content to feel that life in life had grown Separate no longer, but one life alone; Ay, and they guessed thereby what life shall be When Love world-wide has shown his mystery. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CELSUS AT HADRIAN'S VILLA by EDGAR LEE MASTERS UNDER A TELEPHONE POLE by CARL SANDBURG SONNET: INSCRIPTION FOR A PORTRAIT OF DANTE by GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO THE DESERTED HOUSE by MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE A SONG OF FREEDOM by ALICE MILLIGAN IN UTRUMQUE PARATUS by MATTHEW ARNOLD A LETTER by PHILIP JAMES BAILEY |