Part 2 — A GIFT.
Reading edition
My gift would find thee fast asleep, And arise a dream in thee; A violet sky o'er the roll and sweep Of a purple and pallid sea; And a crescent moon from my sky should creep In the golden dream to thee.
Thou shouldst lay thee down, and sadly list To the wail of our cold birth-time; And build thee a temple, glory-kissed, In the heart of the sunny clime; Its columns should rise in a music-mist, And its roofs in a spirit-rhyme.
Its pillars the solemn hills should bind 'Neath arches of starry deeps; Its floor the earth all veined and lined; Its organ the ocean-sweeps; And, swung in the hands of the grey-robed wind, Its censers the blossom-heaps.
And 'tis almost done; for in this my rhyme, Thanks to thy mirror-soul, Thou wilt see the mountains, and hear the chime Of the waters after the roll; And the stars of my sky thy sky will climb, And with heaven roof in the whole.