CHICAGO MAY
Love, the sole rock, the fort, the tower,
Whence mortal dauntless may defy
The malice of the age, the power
Of fate or chance or deity!
Even as in moonlight vale and hill
In holy light and holy shade
Are blest, so he that hath his will
In the male mastery of his maid.
Translucent, all my soul is bathed
In that clear potency and calm
‘Swayed without wind, divinely swathed
In silken silence breathing balm.
The past is past! the future hangs
A haze of grey to eastward woven,
‘A haze that only by the pangs
Of the dawn’s birth may yet be cloven1
Ah, love! and may the night discede?
‘The dawn that wakes us warn us? Nay!
The lyre is lively as the reed,
‘The night less loyal than the day.
‘These dunes, these stars, these holy trees
‘That sentinel our sleep, the moan
Of the tired sea, the birds, the breeze,
‘The moon, all these things are our own,
‘We made them for our love ! our home,
Our palace of eternal rest —
Here, by the starlight and the foam,
Fold me, a flower, to your breast !