ACTUS QUARTUS 17
The night-winds kiss the deep: the stars
Shed laughter from above;
But night must pass dawn’s prison bars:
Night hath not tasted love.
With me the night is fallen in day;
The day swoons back to night;
The white and black are woven in gray,
Faint sleep of silken light.
A strange soft light about me shed
Devours the sense of time:
Hovers about my sleepy head
Some sweet persistent rhyme.
Beneath my breast my love may hear
Deep murmur of the billows—
O gather me to thee, my dear,
On soft forgetful pillows!
O gather me in arms of love
As maidens plucking posies,
Or mists that fold about a dove,
Or valleys full of roses !
O let me fade and fall away
From waking into sleep,
From sleep to death, from gold to gray,
Deep as the skies are deep !