O youth, O music, O sweet wizardy Of young love sung like fire through beating veins! O covering darkness and persuasive sea! O night of stars, of blisses and of pains! But most, O youth that but an hour remains,-- Be fierce, be sweet with us, before you go; For knowing you the best of life we know! Beneath his kiss her mouth rose soft and warm, And dewy soft as rose-leaves were her eyes, Under his hands, shaken as with a storm He felt her soft breast fall and shudder and rise, Torn with impassioned breath, unuttered cries, Quivering, straining breast against his breast, She clung to him, her mouth on his mouth pressed.... And only knew that this was life at last, Forgot all else in agony of bliss; Into this fire of love all earth was cast; The stars, the sea, were mingled in this kiss. And through her heart the blood, with sing and hiss, Poured a red madness, surged a riotous pain,-- Unbearable music cried out in her brain.... “O love,” he said, “O let me come with you! I love you so! This night,--O let me come!” Ah, God have pity! she knew not what to do, But sat all quiet,--frozen, shrinking, dumb; And only heard the toiling engines hum, The rush of sea, the swish of dropping spray, Her clamorous heart; and all that she could say Was a quick “yes,” and then a broken breath That quivered like a sob; and then she rose, Dizzy and weak and pale, like one near death, And now her heart was fire, and now it froze.... Faint in her room she stood; the door to close,-- She might still turn the key.... She cried a space,-- Long in the glass stared at her pallid face.... And heard a step tramp over the deck above, Ringing like iron.... The curtains by her bed Quivered forever to the engine’s move, And from the lamp a quivering light was shed.... These things would all go on when she was dead.... Trembling, with misty eyes, she loosed the pin Under her throat ... mad fires whirled up within.... Mad fires whirled up, ungulfing all her soul; Beyond the sun and stars, across all space, Power that earth nor heaven could now control, She heard her lover come, with quickening pace; Nowhere to hide! Alas, his shining face, Though she hid under seas would find her there, Though she hid under mountains lay her bare! Across the stars, nearer, more near it came, And now earth shook with it, and now the sea, And her white body, tremulous with shame, From its sheer anguish knew that it was he,-- Yearned for this wonder that was soon to be; And all her heart made music for his feet, All of the world re-echoed to their beat....