Green hanging leaf-cones, towering white flower-cones Upon the great cone-fashioned chestnut tree. Each made a tiny ripple where it fell, The trembling pleasure of the smiling wave, Which bore it then, in slow funereal course, Down to the outspread sunny sheen, where lies The lake uplooking to the far-off snow, Its mother still, though now so far away; Feeding it still with long descending lines Of shining, speeding streams, that gather peace In journeying to the rest of that still lake Now lying sleepy in the warm red sun, Which says its dear goodnight, and goeth down. All pale, and withered, and disconsolate, The moon is looking on impatiently; For 'twixt the shining tent-roof of the day, And the sun-deluged lake, for mirror-floor, Her thin pale lamping is too sadly grey To shoot, in silver-barbed, white-plumed arrows, Cold maiden splendours on the flashing fish: Wait for thy empire Night, day-weary moon! And thou shalt lord it in one realm at least, Where two souls walk a single Paradise. Take to thee courage, for the sun is gone; His praisers, the glad birds, have hid their heads; Long, ghost-like forms of trees lie on the grass; All things are clothed in an obscuring light, Fusing their outline in a dreamy mass; Some faint, dim shadows from thy beauty fall On the clear lake which melts them half away-- Shine faster, stronger, O reviving moon! Burn up, O lamp of Earth, hung high in Heaven! And through a warm thin summer mist she shines, A silver setting to the diamond stars; And the dark boat cleaveth a glittering way, Where the one steady beauty of the moon Makes many changing beauties on the wave Broken by jewel-dropping oars, which drive The boat, as human impulses the soul; While, like the sovereign will, the helm's firm law Directs the whither of the onward force. At length midway he leaves the swaying oars Half floating in the blue gulf underneath, And on a load of gathered flowers reclines, Leaving the boat to any air that blows, His soul to any pulse from the unseen heart. Straight from the helm a white hand gleaming flits, And settles on his face, and nestles there, Pale, night-belated butterfly, to sleep. For on her knees his head lies satisfied; And upward, downward, dark eyes look and rest, Finding their home in likeness. Lifting then Her hair upon her white arm heavily, The overflowing of her beauteousness, Her hand that cannot trespass, singles out Some of the curls that stray across her lap; And mingling dark locks in the pallid light, She asks him which is darker of the twain, Which his, which hers, and laugheth like a lute. But now her hair, an unvexed cataract, Falls dark and heavy round his upturned face, And with a heaven shuts out the shallow sky, A heaven profound, the home of two black stars; Till, tired with gazing, face to face they lie, Suspended, with closed eyelids, in the night; Their bodies bathed in conscious sleepiness, While o'er their souls creeps every rippling breath