Bright star, would I were steadfast
as thou art-
Not in lone splendour
hung aloft the night
And watching,
with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient,
sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters
at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's
human shores,
Or gazing on the
new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains,
and the moors-
No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's
ripening breast,
To fed for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still,
still to hear her tender-taken breath,
An so live ever-or else swoon to death

WITH LOVE