With her soft face half turned to me,
Like an arrested moonbeam, she
Stood in the cirque of that deep tree.
I took her by the hands; she raised
Her face to mine; and, half amazed,
Remembered; and we stood and gazed.
How good to kiss her throat and hair,
And say no word! - Her throat was bare;
As some moon-fungus white and fair.
Had God not giv'n us life for this?
The world-old, amorous happiness
Of arms that clasp, and lips that kiss!
The eloquence of limbs and arms!
The rhetoric of breasts, whose charms
Say to the sluggish blood what warms!
Had God or Fiend assigned this hour
That bloomed, - where love had all of power, -
The senses' aphrodisiac flower?
The dawn was far away. Nude night
Hung savage stars of sultry white
Around her bosom's Ethiop light.
Night! night, who gave us each to each,
Where heart with heart could hold sweet speech,
With life's best gift within our reach.
And here it was - between the goals
Of flesh and spirit, sex controls -
Took place the marriage of our souls.