Bright star,
would I were steadfast as thou art
Not in lone splendor 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 masque
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors
No, yet still steadfast, still unchangeable
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast
To feel forever it’s soft swell and fall
Awake forever in a sweet unrest
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath
And so live ever, or else swoon to death.