CONSTANCY IN INCONSTANCY.
129
Wise as a woman, harmless as a child,
I love thee well! And yet not thee, not thee,
God knows—they know who sit among the stars.
As one whose sun was darkened before noon,
Creeps patiently along the twilight lands,
Sees glow-worms, meteors, or tapers kind
Of an hour's burning, stops awhile to mark,
Thanks heaven for them, but never calls them day—
So love I these, and more. Yet thou, my sun,
Who rose, leaped to thy zenith, sat there throned,
And made the whole earth day—look, if thou canst,
Out of thy veiled glory, and behold
How all these lesser lights but come and go,
Mere reflexes of thee. Be it so! I keep
My face unto the eastward, where thou stand'st—
I know thou stand'st—behind the purpling hills,
And I shall wake and find morn in the world.
I love thee well! And yet not thee, not thee,
God knows—they know who sit among the stars.
As one whose sun was darkened before noon,
Creeps patiently along the twilight lands,
Sees glow-worms, meteors, or tapers kind
Of an hour's burning, stops awhile to mark,
Thanks heaven for them, but never calls them day—
So love I these, and more. Yet thou, my sun,
Who rose, leaped to thy zenith, sat there throned,
And made the whole earth day—look, if thou canst,
Out of thy veiled glory, and behold
How all these lesser lights but come and go,
Mere reflexes of thee. Be it so! I keep
My face unto the eastward, where thou stand'st—
I know thou stand'st—behind the purpling hills,
And I shall wake and find morn in the world.
