But may be pleasurably seen? what sense
Keeps in its hot sharp extreme violence

No savour of sweet things? The bereaved blood
And emptied flesh in their most broken mood
Fail not so wholly, famish not when thus

Past honey keeps the starved lip covetous.
Therefore this speech from a glad mouth began,
Breathed in her tender hair and temples wan
Like one prolonged kiss while the lips had breath :
"Sleep, that abides in vassalage of death
And in death's service wears out half his age,
Hath his dreams full of deadly vassalage,
Shadow and sound of things ungracious;
Fair shallow faces, hooded bloodless brows,
And mouths past kissing; yea, myself have had
As harsh a dream as holds your eyelids sad.

"This dream I tell you came three nights ago; In full mid sleep I took a whim to know

How sweet things might be; so I turned and thought;
But save my dream all sweet availed me not.

First came a smell of pounded spice and scent
Such as God ripens in some continent

Of utmost amber in the Syrian sea;

And breaths as though some costly rose could be
Spoiled slowly, wasted by some bitter fire

To burn the sweet out leaf by leaf, and tire

The flower's poor heart with heat and waste, to make Strong magic for some perfumed woman's sake..

Then a cool naked sense beneath my feet

Of bud and blossom; and sound of veins that beat
As if a lute should play of its own heart

And fearfully, not smitten of either part;

And all my blood it filled with sharp and sweet
As gold swoln grain fills out the husked wheat;
So I rose naked from the bed, and stood

Counting the mobile measure in my blood

Some pleasant while, and through each limb there came Swift little pleasures pungent as a flame,

Felt in the thrilling flesh and veins as much

As the outer curls that feel the comb's first touch

Thrill to the roots and shiver as from fire;
And blind between my dream and my desire
I seemed to stand and held my spirit still
Lest this should cease. A child whose fingers spill
Honey from cells forgotten of the bee

Is less afraid to stir the hive and see

Some wasp's bright back inside, than I to feel
Some finger-touch disturb the flesh like steel.
I prayed thus; Let me catch a secret here
So sweet, it sharpens the sweet taste of fear
And takes the mouth with edge of wine; I would
Have here some colour and smooth shape as good.
As those in heaven whom the chief garden hides
With low grape-blossom veiling their white sides
And lesser tendrils that so bind and blind

Their

eyes and feet, that if one come behind

To touch their hair they see not, neither fly;
This would I see in heaven and not die.
So praying, I had nigh cried out and knelt,
So wholly my prayer filled me: till I felt

In the dumb night's warm weight of glowing gloom
Somewhat that altered all my sleeping-room,

And made it like a green low place wherein
Maids mix to bathe: one sets her small warm chin
Against a ripple, that the angry pearl

May flow like flame about her: the next curl
Dips in some eddy coloured of the sun

To wash the dust well out; another one
Holds a straight ankle in her hand and swings
With lavish body sidelong, so that rings

Of sweet fierce water, swollen and splendid, fail
All round her fine and floated body pale,
Swayed flower-fashion, and her balanced side
Swerved edgeways lets the weight of water slide,
As taken in some underflow of sea

Swerves the banked gold of sea-flowers; but she
Pulls down some branch to keep her perfect head
Clear of the river: even from wall to bed,

I tell you, was my room transfigured so.

Sweet, green and warm it was, nor could one know
If there were walls or leaves, or if there was
No bed's green curtain, but mere gentle grass.
There were set also hard against the feet

Gold plates with honey and green grapes to eat,

With the cool water's noise to hear in rhymes:
And a wind warmed me full of furze and limes
And all hot sweets the heavy summer fills
To the round brim of smooth cup-shapen hills.
Next the grave walking of a woman's feet
Made my veins hesitate, and gracious heat
Made thick the lids and leaden on mine eyes:
And I thought ever, surely it were wise

Not yet to see her: this may last (who knows?)
Five minutes; the poor rose is twice a rose
Because it turns a face to her, the wind

Sings that way; hath this woman ever sinned,
I wonder? as a boy with apple-rind,

I played with pleasures, made them to my mind,
Changed each ere tasting. When she came indeed,
First her hair touched me, then I grew to feed
On the sense of her hand; her mouth at last
Touched me between the cheek and lip and past
Over my face with kisses here and there
Sown in and out across the eyes and hair.

Still I said nothing; till she set her face

More close and harder on the kissing-place,

And her mouth caught like a snake's mouth, and stung

So faint and tenderly, the fang scarce clung

More than a bird's foot: yet a wound it grew,

A great one, let this red mark witness you
Under the left breast; and the stroke thereof
So clove my sense that I woke out of love

And knew not what this dream was nor had wit;
But now God knows if I have skill of it."

Hereat she laid one palm against her lips
To stop their trembling; as when water slips
Out of a beak-mouthed vessel with faint noise
And chuckles in the narrowed throat and cloys
The carven rims with murmuring, so came
Words in her lips with no word right of them,
A beaten speech thick and disconsolate,
Till his smile ceasing waxed compassionate
Of her sore fear that grew from anything—
The sound of the strong summer thickening
In heated leaves of the smooth apple-trees:
The day's breath felt about the ash-branches,
And noises of the noon whose weight still grew
On the hot heavy-headed flowers, and drew
Their red mouths open till the rose-heart ached;
For eastward all the crowding rose was slaked

And soothed with shade; but westward all its growth
Seemed to breathe hard with heat as a man doth
Who feels his temples newly feverous.

And even with such motion in her brows

As that man hath in whom sick days begin,

She turned her throat and spake, her voice being thin As a sick man's, sudden and tremulous;

"Sweet, if this end be come indeed on us,

Let us love more;" and held his mouth with hers.

As the first sound of flooded hill-waters

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