THE STAR AND THE GARTER
I
HAT sadness closes in between
Your eyes and mine to-day, my queen ?
In dewfall of our glance hath come
The chill of sunset in hot lands
’Mid iris and chrysanthemum.
Well do I know the shaken sands
Within the surf, the beaten bar
Of coral, the white nenuphar
Of moonrise stealing o’er the bay.
So here’s the darkness, and the day
Sinks, and a chill clusters, and I
Wrap close the cloak : then is it so
To-day, you rose-gleam on the snow,
My own true lover ? Ardently
I dare not look: I never looked
So: that you know. But insight keen
We (laugh and) call not “love.” Now crooked
The light swerves somehow. Do you mean—
What? There is coldness and regret
Set like the stinging winter spray
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