Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/226

 Our ropes are dead maids’ hair, Our stores are love-shafts fair And manifold. We are in love’s land to-day—

Where shall we land you, sweet? On fields of strange men’s feet, Or fields near home? Or where the fire-flowers blow, Or where the flowers of snow Or flowers of foam? We are in love’s hand to-day—

Land me, she says, where love Shows but one shaft, one dove, One heart, one hand. —A shore like that, my dear, Lies where no man will steer, No maiden land.

Imitated from Théophile Gautier.