I make this rhyme of my lady and me To give me ease of my misery, Of my lady and me I make this rhyme For lovers in the after-time. And I weave its warp from day to day In a golden loom deep hid away In my secret heart, where no one goes But my lady's self, and--no one knows. With bended head all day I pore On a joyless task, and yet before My eyes all day, through each weary hour, Breathes my lady's face like a dewy flower. Like rain it comes through the dusty air, Like sun on the meadows to think of her; O sweet as violets in early spring The flower-girls to the city bring, O, healing-bright to wintry eyes As primrose-gold 'neath northern skies-- But O for fit thing to compare With the joy I have in the thought of her! So all day long doth her holy face Bring fragrance to the barren place, And whensoe'er it comes nearest me, My loom it weaveth busily. Some days there be when the loom is still And my soul is sad as an autumn hill, But how to tell the blessed time When my heart is one glowing prayer of rhyme! Think on the humming afternoon Within some busy wood in June, When nettle patches, drunk with the sun, Are fiery outposts of the shade; While gnats keep up a dizzy reel, And the grasshopper, perched upon his blade, Loud drones his fairy threshing-wheel:-- Hour when some poet-wit might feign The drowsy tune of the throbbing air The weaving of the gossamer In secret nooks of wood and lane-- The gossamer, silk night-robes of the flowers, Fluttered apart by amorous morning hours. Yea, as the weaving of the gossamer, If truly that the mystic golden boom, Is the strange rapture of my hidden loom, As I sit in the light of the thought of her; And it weaveth, weaveth, day by day, This parti-coloured roundelay; Weaving for ease of misery, Weaving this rhyme of my lady and me, Weaving, weaving this warp of rhyme For lovers in the after-time. My lady, lover, may never be mine In the same sweet way that thine is thine, My lady and I may never stand By the holy altar hand in hand, My lady and I may never rest Through the golden midnight breast to breast, Nor share long days of happy light Sweet moving in each other's sight: Yea, even must we ever miss The honey of the chastest kiss. III