Page:Dreams and Images.djvu/288

 Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat, And share commingling heat; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek. For ah, we know not what each other says These things and I; in sound I speak— Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drought; Let her, if she would owe me, Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me   The breasts of her tenderness: Never did any milk of hers once bless My thirsting mouth. Nigh and nigh draws the chase, With unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy; And past those noised fleet— A Voice comes yet more fleet— "Lo! naught contents thee who content'st not Me."

Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, I am defenceless utterly. I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years— My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.