Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/48

20 And winds through the rigging shrill and sing;

Where night is one vast starless shade;

Where thy soul not afraid,

Tho' all alone unlonely,

Wanders and wavers, wavers wandering;

On that accursèd sea

One moment only,

Forget one moment, Love, thy fierce content;

Back let thy soul be bent—

Think back, dear Love, O Love, think back to me!

XVI—"A SONG OF THE MAIDEN MORN"

XVII—WORDS IN ABSENCE

that my words were as my fingers,

So that my Love might feel them move

Slowly over her brow, as lingers

The sunset wind o'er the world of its love.

I would that my words were as the beating

Of her own heart, that keeps repeating

My name through the livelong day and the night;

And when my Love her lover misses,—

Longs for and loves in the dark and the light,—