Now A Soft Kiss - Aye, By

Even Bees, The Little Almsmen Of Spring Bowers, Know There Is Richest Juice In Poison-flowers.

Much Have I Traveled In The Realms Of Gold, And Many Goodly States And Kingdoms Seen.

And How They Kist Each Other's Tremulous Eyes.

Souls Of Poets Dead And Gone, What Elysium Have Ye Known, Happy Field Or Mossy Cavern, Choicer Than The Mermaid Tavern? Have Ye Tippled Drink More Fine Than Mine Host's Canary Wine?

Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast As Thou Art--- Not In Lone Splendour Hung Aloft The Night And Watching, With Eternal Lids Apart, Like Nature's Patient, Sleepless Eremite, The Moving Waters At Their Priestlike Task Of Pure Ablution Round Earth's Human Shores, Or Gazing On The New Soft-fallen Mask Of Snow Upon The Mountains And The Moors--- No---yet Still Stedfast, Still Unchangeable, Pillowed Upon My Fair Love's Ripening Breast, To Feel For Ever Its Soft Fall And Swell, Awake For Ever In A Sweet Unrest, Still, Still To Hear Her Tender-taken Breath, And So Live Ever---or Else Swoon In Death.