A fairy creature made of dew
  And moonrise and the songs of birds,
And laughter like the running brook,
  And little soft, heart-broken words.

Haunted as marble in the moon,
  Her whiteness lies on young love’s breast. 
And living frankincense and myrrh
  Her lips that on his lips are pressed.

Her eyes are lost within his eyes,
  His eyes in hers are fathoms deep;
Death is not stiller than these twain
  That smile as in a magic sleep.

I heard him say as they went by,
  Two human flowers in the dew: 
“Darling, ah, God, if you should die,
  You know, that moment I die, too.”

I heard her say:  “I could not live
  An hour without you”; heard her say: 
“My life is in your hands to keep,
  To keep, or just to throw away.”

I heard him say:  “For just us two
  The world was made, the stars above
Move in their orbits, to this end: 
  That you and I should meet and love.”

I heard her say:  “And God himself
  Has us in keeping, heart to heart;
In his great book our names are writ—­
The Book of Those that Never Part.”

“How strange it is!” I heard him say;
  “How strange!” and yet again, “How strange! 
To meet at last, and know this love
  Of ours can never fade or change.”

“How strange to think that you are mine,
  Each little hair of your dear head,
And no one else’s in the world—­
  How strange it is!” the woman said.

* * * * *

I stand aside to let them pass,
  My Autumn face they never see;
Their eyes are on the rising sun,
  But ’tis the setting sun for me.

For me no wild rose in the lane,
  But only sad autumnal flowers,
And falling shadows and old sighs,
  And melancholy drift of hours!

LOVERS

They sit within a woodland place,
  Trellised with rustling light and shade;
So like a spirit is her face
  That he is half afraid
  To speak—­lest she should fade.

Mysterious, beneath the boughs,
  Like two enchanted shapes, they are,
Whom Love hath builded them a house
  Of little leaf and star,
  And the brown evening jar.

So lovely and so strange a thing
  Each is to each to look upon,
They dare not hearken a bird sing,
  Or from the other one
  Take eyes—­lest they be gone.

So still—­the watching woodland peers
  And pecks about them, butterflies
Light on her hand—­a flower; eve hears
  Two questions, two replies—­
  O love that never dies!

FOR A PICTURE BY ROSE CECIL O’NEIL

Kisses are long forgotten of this twain,
  Kisses and words—­the sweet small prophecies
That run before the Lord of Love:  the fain
  Touch of the hand, and feasting of the eyes,
All tendrilled sweets that blossom at the door
  Of the stern doom, whose ecstacy is this—­
  The end of all small speech of word or kiss,
And whose strange name is Love—­and one name more.