May I thereon my bosom lay,
When weary love is tired of play,
So, fettered in her arms, to keep
A vigil waking half, half sleep?
If fate has willed
That I should die,
Are there no means
Save that soft eye?
You see my love, though far apart,
Before you ever, O my heart!
Should vision cease to satisfy,
Oh, teach your magic to my eye:
For even her presence will distress,
If bought by too great loneliness,
Since none—the merciful are blest—
Of selfishness may stand confessed.
She stole his luster from the moon—
The moon is dull and cold;
The lily's sheen is in her eyes—
No charge of theft will hold;
The elephant's majesty she seized—
Naught knows he of her art;
From me the slender maiden took,
Ah, strange! a feeling heart.
In middle air I see my love,
On earth below, in heaven above;
In life's last hour, on her I call:
She is, like Vishnu, all-in-all.
All mental states, the Buddha said,
Are transient; he was wrong:
My meditations on my love
Are infinitely long.
