The Star and the Garter

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 7