I
There are some things too wonderful to tell:
Sunset, red-gold across a waveless sea,
From pool to pool a glen-stream's revelry,
The morning star's pale fire and breathless spell,
And so I cannot say how wonderful you are.
There are some things too beautiful to know:
The silver song the shimmering planets sing,
What the tall, bending birch is whispering,
How sunlight kisses the sky buds ablow,
So I can only guess your beauty from afar.
II
Am I like a lily?
Am I like a rose?
You are like the white birch
When no wind blows.
Am I like the sunset?
Am I like the dawn?
You are like the crescent moon,
And day scarce gone.
Has your love no end?
Has your love no let?
My love is like the air you breathe,
Which you forget.
My love is like the earth
You cannot choose but tread,
Which still would hold you close
Though you lay dead.
III
Oh, I have kissed the feet of hills
That were blue sisters to the sky.
But what care hills that speak with clouds
For such as I?
Yet I have seen the hills look up
In endless yearning to some star
That walked the heavens, aloof and proud,
As such things are.
And I have sorrowed for the hills;
Stars will not answer their desire,
Or swerve to brush the highest peak's
Upstraining spire.
But love is mine and I have known
More unimagined, breathless bliss,
Than had the hills I loved erewhile
Stooped to my kiss.
