See in the babe two loveliest flowers united--yet in truth,
While in the bud they seem the same--the virgin and the youth!
But loosened is the gentle bond, no longer side by side--
From holy shame the fiery strength will soon itself divide.
Permit the youth to sport, and still the wild desire to chase,
For, but when sated, weary strength returns to seek the grace.
Yet in the bud, the double flowers the future strife begin,
How precious all--yet naught can still the longing heart within.
In ripening charms the virgin bloom to woman shape hath grown,

Not in the street and not in the square,
The street and square where you went and came;
With shuttered casement your house stands bare,
Men hush their voice when they speak your name.

I, too, can play at the vain pretence,
Can feign you dead; while a voice sounds clear
In the inmost depths of my heart: Go hence,
Go, find your friend who is far from here.

Not here, but somewhere where I can reach!
Can a man with motion, hearing and sight,
And a thought that answered my thought and speech,
Be utterly lost and vanished quite?

SHE passes in her beauty bright
Amongst the mean, amongst the gay,
And all are brighter for the sight,
And bless her as she goes her way.

And now a gleam of pity pours,
And now a spark of spirit flies,
Uncounted, from the unlock’d stores
Of her rich lips and precious eyes.

And all men look, and all men smile,
But no man looks on her as I:
They mark her for a little while,
But I will watch her till I die.

And if I wonder now and then
Why this so strange a thing should be—

Go I must along my ways
Though my heart be ragged,
Dripping bitter through the days,
Festering, and jagged.
Smile I must at every twinge,
Kiss, to time its throbbing;
He that tears a heart to fringe
Hates the noise of sobbing.

Weep, my love, till Heaven hears;
Curse and moan and languish.
While I wash your wound with tears,
Ease aloud your anguish.
Bellow of the pit in Hell
Where you're made to linger.
There and there and well and well-
Did he prick his finger!

Turn from that road's beguiling ease; return
to your hunger's turret. Enter, climb the stair
chill with disuse, where the croaking toad of time
regards from shimmering eyes your slow ascent
and the drip, drip, of darkness glimmers on the stone
to show you how your longing waits alone.
What alchemy shines from under that shut door,
spinning out gold from the hollow of the heart?

Enter the turret of your love, and lie
close in the arms of the sea; let in new suns
that beat and echo in the mind like sounds

When I consider, pro and con,
What things my love is built upon --
A curly mouth; a sinewed wrist;
A questioning brow; a pretty twist
Of words as old and tried as sin;
A pointed ear; a cloven chin;
Long, tapered limbs; and slanted eyes
Not cold nor kind nor darkly wise --
When so I ponder, here apart,
What shallow boons suffice my heart,
What dust-bound trivia capture me,
I marvel at my normalcy.

Like summer waves on sands of snow,
Soft ringlets clasp her neck and brow,
And wandering breezes kiss away
A threaded light of glimmering spray,
That drifts and floats and softly flies
In a golden mist about her eyes.
Her laugh is fresh as foam that springs
Through tumbling shells and shining things,
And where the gleaming margin dries
Is heard the music of her sighs.
Her gentle bosom ebbs and swells
With the tide of life that deeply wells
From a throbbing heart that loves to break

Into the world you sent her, mother,
Fashioned her body of coral and foam,
Combed a wave in her hair's warm smother,
And drove her away from home

In the dark of the night she crept to the town
And under a doorway she laid her down,
The little blue child in the foam-fringed gown.

And never a sister and never a brother
To hear her call, to answer her cry.
Her face shone out from her hair's warm smother
Like a moonkin up in the sky.

She sold her corals; she sold her foam;
Her rainbow heart like a singing shell

The sea, my mother, is singing to me,
   She is singing the old refrain,
Of passion, of love, and of mystery,
   And her world-old song of pain;
Of the mirk midnight and the dazzling day,
That trail their robes o'er the wet sea-way.

The sea, my mother, is singing to me
   With the white foam caught in her hair,
With the seaweed swinging its long arms free,
   To grapple the blown sea air:
The sea, my mother, with billowy swell,

Consider the sea's listless chime;
Time's self it is, made audible -
The murmur of the earth's own shell.
Secret continuance sublime
Is the sea's end: our sight may pass
No furlong further. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No quiet, which is death's -it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands
Grey and not known, along its path.