Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/214

THE CARIB SEA No lasting links to bind the soul are wrought

Where passion takes no deeper cast from thought;

Ah! lend your ear a moment to the lays

Our poets sing you of a trustier realm!

Under the cocoa-fronds that flutter,

Here, where the lush white trumpet-flower

And the curled lianas roof us over,

So that no evil thing discover

The sighs we mingle, the words we utter,—

Here, oh here, let us make our bower!

Love is not perfect, sweet, that like a dream

Flows on without a forecast or a pain;

Some burden must betide to make it strong,

Some toil, to make its briefest bliss seem long,—

Ay, longer than the crossing of a stream

Mist-haunted, lit by moons that surely wane.

Here, for a round of moons unbroken,

A spell that holds shall your loss requite;

The fleet, sweet moments shall pass unreckoned

And all to our constant love be second,

And the fragrant lily shall be our token,

That folds itself on the waves at night.

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