YET is there more, whereat none guesseth, love!

Upon the ending of my deadly night

(Whereof thou hast not the surmise, and slight

Is all that any mortal knows thereof),

Thou wert to me that earnest of day's light,

When, like the back of a gold-mailed saurian

Heaving its slow length from Nilotic slime,

The first long gleaming fissure runs Aurorian

Athwart the yet dun firmament of prime.

Stretched on the margin of the cruel sea

Whence they had rescued me,

With faint and painful pulses was I lying;

Not yet discerning well

If I had 'scaped, or were an icicle,

Whose thawing is its dying.

Like one who sweats before a despot's gate,

Summoned by some presaging scroll of fate,

And knows not whether kiss or dagger wait;

And all so sickened is his countenance,

The courtiers buzz, " Lo, doomed!" and look at him

askance:-

At Fate's dread portal then

Even so stood I, I ken,

Even so stood I, between a joy and fear,

And said to mine own heart, "Now it the end be

here!"

They say, Earth's beauty seems completest

To them that on their death-beds rest;

Gentle lady! she smiles sweetest

Just ere she clasps us to her breast.

And I,-now my Earth's countenance grew bright,

Did she but smile me towards that nuptial-night?

But, whileas on such dubious bed I lay,

One unforgotten day,

As a sick child waking sees

Wide-eyed daisies

Gazing on it from its hand,

Slipped there for its dear amazes;

So between thy father's knees

I saw thee stand,

And through my hazes

Of pain and fear thine eyes' young wonder shone.

Then, as flies scatter from a carrion,

Or rooks in spreading gyres like broken smoke

Wheel, when some sound their quietude has broke,

Fled, at thy countenance, all that doubting spawn:

The heart which I had questioned spoke,

A cry impetuous from its depths was drawn,-

" I take the omen of this face of dawn!"

And with the omen to my heart cam'st thou.

Even with a spray of tears

That one light draft was fixed there for the years.

And now?-

The hours I tread ooze memories of thee, Sweet,

Beneath my casual feet.

With rainfall as the lea,

The day is drenched with thee;

In little exquisite surprises

Bubbling deliciousriess of thee arises

From sudden places,

Under the common traces

Of my most lethargied and customed paces.