Collected Works (Vol. II)

42 ORACLES Rosy with wifehood. Now the shallop glides On gloomier shadier tides, While the long hair of willows bent and kissed The stream, and drew its mist Up through their silent atmosphere. Some sorrow drawing near That slow, dark river would for sympathy Have found its home and never wandered out Into the sunlight any more. A sigh Stirred the pale waters where the moonlight stood Upon the sleepy flood | In certain bough-wrought shapes of mystic meaning, As if the moon were weaning The king her babe from milk of life and love To milk new-dropped above From her sweet breast in vaporous light Into the willowy night That lay upon the river. So the king Heard a strange chant—the woods began to sing ; The river took the tune; the willows kept Time; and the black skies wept Those tears, those blossoms, those pear] drops of milk That the moon shed: and looking up he saw As if the willows were but robes of silk, The moon’s face stoop and draw Close to his forehead: at the tears she shed He knew that he was dead ! Thus he feared not, nor wondered, as the stream Grew darker, as a dream Fades to the utter deep Of dreamless sleep. The stream grew darker, and the willows cover (As lover from a lover Even for love's sake all the wealth of love) The whole light of the skies: there came to him Sense of some being dim Bent over him, one colour and one form With the dark leaves; but warm And capable of some diviner air. Her limbs were bare, her face supremely fair, Her soul one shapely splendour, Her voice indeed as tender As very silence: so he would not speak, But let his being fade: that all the past Grew shadowy and weak, And lost its life at last, Being mere dream to this that was indeed Life : and some utter need Of this one’s love grew up in him: he knew The spirit of that dew In his own soul; and this indeed was love. The faint girl bent above With fixed eyes close upon him ; oh! her face Burned in the rapturous grace Feeding on his; and subtly, without touch, Grew as a flower that opens at the dawn Their kiss: for touch of lips is death to love. Even as the gentle plant one finger presses, However soft the tress is Of even the air’s profane caresses, It closes, all its joy of light withdrawn ; The sun feels sadness in his skies above, Because one flower is folded. Thus they floated Most deathlessly devoted Beyond the trees, and where the hills divide To take the nighted tide Into a darker, deeper, greener breast, Maybe to find—what rest? Now to those girdling mountains moon-exalted Came through the hills deep-vaulted That. pearly shallop: there the rocks were rent, And the pale element Flowed idly in their gorges: there the night Admits no beam of light ; Nor can the poet’s eye One ray espy. Therefore I saw not how the voyage ended, Only wherethrough those cliffs were rended I saw them pass: and ever closer bent - The lady and the lover; ever slower Moved the light craft, and lower Murmured the waters and the wind com- - plained ; And ever the moon waned ; Not wheeling round the world, But subtly curved and curled