Part 1 — ASLEEP.

What, darling, asleep in this sylvan retreat! Thy loose tresses sprinkled with rose petals sweet; Blown in from the sunlight, some float to thy breast; Less fragrant are they than their beautiful nest. There flutt'ring a moment they rise and they sink, As quivers a humbird his honey to drink, Or fond doves a-wooing that shiver their wings, Or throat of a song bird that throbs while he sings. These petals at last swoon far down in thy snow, Whose warm drifts of wonder they only can know; And hidden they lie there all rocked by thy breath, And pressed in soft odors to ravishing death. Thine eyes their dear curtains now shut from the light, Sweet veined and blue tinted they round to my sight, Fair shells of deep oceans! And sometimes a shell, When close to your ear, its home secrets will tell: But in music so mystic, you cannot guess The strange tales of Ocean it tries to confess. So lady, thine eyelids, as skies shut the sea, Or shells try to whisper, are whisp'ring to me. As glad streams of day 'neath the dawn's glowing tide, So white keys of laughter thy curving lips hide, Warm gates of the morning, when morning is new, And red for the sunshine of smiles to break through! Thy round arms rest o'er thee so fair and so lone, Like that white path of stars across the night's zone: That pathway, when twilight late vanishing dies, Embraces the earth, though it quits not the skies. Thus stars kiss the hills, and the trees, and the plain, Yet never can they kiss the stars back again; Though yearning they thirst for those arms of the sky, They never will taste the white home where they lie. So rivers and oceans with influence sweet, Their mighty hearts swelling loved Luna to greet, Strain sobbing their bosoms to hold her dear face, And thrilled to their depths with her luminous grace, In tossing waves rapturous rise to her smile. In vain! Their coy queen half receding the while, In slow fainting cadence they sink to the shore, And hoarse tones of love-hunger moan evermore. Ah, lady, bright sleeper, my soul, like the sea, Illumed with thy beauty, is trembling to thee: I kneel in the silence, and drink in the air That, fragrant and holy, has toyed with thy hair; And hushed in thy presence with worshipping fear— The breeze even stills when it reaches thine ear— My lips dare not whisper in softest refrain The trance of my heart in its passionate pain. Oh, open thine eyes! let their smile make me brave— The Queen e'en of Ocean will look at her slave!— Let me drown in their light—deliciously drown, And lay thy white hand on my head for a crown, And chrism. And thus regally shrived, might I dare Exhale the warm infinite incense of prayer From my deep soul to thine. Nor then couldst thou know The wealth of the censer. Thou wak'st!—must I go?