When rain in a quick shower has beat down mist, And clouds float white above like broods of swans. How the blood lies upon her cheek, outspread As thinned by kisses! only in her lips It wells and pulses like a living thing, And her neck looks like marble misted o'er With love-breath,--a Pauline from heights above, Stooping beneath me, looking up--one look As I might kill her and be loved the more. So, love me--me, Pauline, and naught but me, Never leave loving! Words are wild and weak, Believe them not, Pauline! I stained myself But to behold thee purer by my side, To show thou art my breath, my life, a last Resource, an extreme want: never believe Aught better could so look on thee; nor seek Again the world of good thoughts left for mine! There were bright troops of undiscovered suns, Each equal in their radiant course; there were Clusters of far fair isles which ocean kept For his own joy, and his waves broke on them Without a choice; and there was a dim crowd Of visions, each a part of some grand whole: And one star left his peers and came with peace Upon a storm, and all eyes pined for him; And one isle harbored a sea-beaten ship, And the crew wandered in its bowers and plucked Its fruits and gave up all their hopes of home; And one dream came to a pale poet's sleep, And he said, "I am singled out by God, No sin must touch me." Words are wild and weak, But what they would express is,--Leave me not, Still sit by me with beating breast and hair Loosened, be watching earnest by my side, Turning my books or kissing me when I Look up--like summer wind! Be still to me A help to music's mystery which mind fails To fathom, its solution, no mere clue! O reason's pedantry, life's rule prescribed! I hopeless, I the loveless, hope and love. Wiser and better, know me now, not when You loved me as I was. Smile not! I have Much yet to dawn on you, to gladden you. No more of the past! I'll look within no more, I have too trusted my own lawless wants, Too trusted my vain self, vague intuition-- Draining soul's wine alone in the still night, And seeing how, as gathering films arose, As by an inspiration life seemed bare And grinning in its vanity, while ends Foul to be dreamed of, smiled at me as fixed And fair, while others changed from fair to foul As a young witch turns an old hag at night. No more of this! We will go hand in hand, I with thee, even as a child--love's slave, Looking no farther than his liege commands.