Page:The Garden of Years.djvu/54



There is a sheen in those soft gowns you wear

Like water turned to opal by the moon;

A lustre in those jewels that you bear,

Twined in and out amid your dusky hair,

Like the still stars, and like the blaze of noon.

There is a perfume of some sweeter June

Than earth hath seen, that follows where you go;

And all the solemn silence is atune

With unvoiced songs, such as the angels know,

Born without breath upon the breathless air!

We may not hope to find each other thus

In waking hours. Our days are too beset

With the world’s voices, shrill and clamorous:

Life is too sharply strained, too strenuous—

We are but mortal, and we may forget!

The momentary pang of some regret

May lay its hand an instant on your eyes

And mine, dear heart, and cloud our vision—yet

Remember that with earthly fears and sighs

We two have naught to do, nor they with us.