Page:Poems, Alan Seeger, 1916.djvu/64

 Thrice dear to them whose votive fingers decked

The altars of First Love were these green ways,—

These lawns and verdurous brakes forever flecked

With the warm sunshine of midsummer days;

Oft where the long straight allies intersect

And marble seats surround the open space,

Where a tiled pool and sculptured fountain stand,

Hath Evening found them seated, silent, hand in hand.

When twilight deepened, in the gathering shade

Beneath that old titanic cypress row,

Whose sombre vault and towering colonnade

Dwarfed the enfolded forms that moved below,

Oft with close steps these happy lovers strayed,

Till down its darkening aisle the sunset glow

Grew less and patterning the garden floor

Faint flakes of filtering moonlight mantled more and more.

And the strange tempest that a touch imparts

Through the mid fibre of the molten frame,

When the sweet flesh in early youth asserts

Its heyday verve and little hints enflame,

Disturbed them as they walked; from their full hearts

Welled the soft word, and many a tender name

Strove on their lips as breast to breast they strained

And the deep joy they drank seemed never, never drained.

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