Power in Silence

I

Though I sing high, and chaunt above her,

Praising my girl,

It were not right

To reckon her the poorer lover;

   She does not love me less

For her royal, jewelled speechlessness,

She is the sapphire, she the light,

The music in the pearl.

II

Not from pert birds we learn the spring-tide

   From open sky.

   What speaks to us

Closer than far distances that hide

In woods, what is more dear

Than a cherry-bough, bees feeding near

In the soft, proffered blooms? Lo, I

Am fed and honoured thus.

III

She has the star’s own pulse; its throbbing

   Is a quick light.

She is a dove

My soul draws to its breast; her sobbing

   Is for the warm dark there!

In the heat of her wings I would not care

My close-housed bird should take her flight

   To magnify our love.