The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (13.1897)

The Noon of Love

Soft as the amorous dove’s uplifted pinion,

Sweet as the fair first sleep of new-born sorrow.
There’s not the least small stir on yonder wall
Of grass or fern ; hushed is the torrent’s throat
Within the dark ravine, and in yon oak
The woodpecker his many-sounding stroke
Has stayed ; the windless air bears not one note
To vex the dreaming air this noontide fall.

But we, my love, sleep not, but wake to prove
The inconstant constancy o’ the noon of love ;

My kingdom lost ! which once more I regain,

And then do lose with every evening’s pain—

A conqueror who takes his spoil, yet yields
More than he wins of Love’s ne’er-conquered fields—
Some unimagined treasure there must be
That I from you may draw, or you from me,

Some joy which we from envious time may wrest
That shall make droop the proud o’er-topping crest
Of yesterday ; and so the exhaustless store
Offers fresh marvels of love-lure and lore.

Thus ours full harvest is ; our noon of love
Nor afternoon nor aftermath may know,

With changeless change it does our spirits move
And of love’s hours eternises the flow :

Better than best of what is past, O Day !

Until thou diest with thy last rose-ray,

Better than best until to-morrow shines
A-quivering through yon purple band of pines,

Ever the best, beneath noon’s ripened skies,

O Spirit and Heart that me imparadise !

Westward