Why is it I remember
You, of all women one has
In random wayfare, as one
The chance romances of the streets,
The Juliet of a night?
I
Your heart holds many a Romeo.
And I, who call to mind your
In so serene a pausing-place,
Where the bright pure expanse of sea,
The shadowy shore's austerity,
Seems a reproach to you and me,
I too have sought on many a
The ecstasy of love's unrest,
I too have had my dreams, and met(Ah me!) how many a Juliet.
Why is it, then, that I
You, neither first nor last of all?
For, surely as I see
The glancing of the lighthouse light,
Against the sky, across the bay,
As turn by turn it falls my way,
So surely do I see your
Out of the empty night arise,
Child, you arise and smile to
Out of the night, out of the sea,
The Nereid of a moment there,
And is it seaweed in your hair?
O lost and wrecked, how long ago,
Out of the drownèd past,
I know,
You come to call me, come to
My share of your delicious shame.
Child,
I remember, and can tell,
One night we loved each other well;
And one night's love, at least or most,
Is not so small a thing to boast.
You were adorable, and
Adored you to infinity,
That nuptial night too briefly
To the oblivion of morn.
Oh, no oblivion! for I
Your lips deliriously
Along my neck and fasten there;
I feel the perfume of your hair,
And your soft breast that heaves and dips,
Desiring my desirous lips,
And that ineffable
When souls turn bodies, and
In the intolerable, the
Rapture of the embodied soul.
That joy was ours, we passed it by;
You have forgotten me, and
Remember you thus strangely,
An instant from oblivion.
And I, remembering, would
That joy, not shame, is ours to share,
Joy that we had the will and power,
In spite of fate, to snatch one hour,
Out of vague nights, and days at strife,
So infinitely full of life.
And 'tis for this I see you rise,
A wraith, with starlight in your eyes,
Here, where the drowsy-minded
Is one with Nature's solitude;
For this, for this, you come to
Out of the night, out of the sea.
