Incompleteness.

Since first I met thee, Dear, and long before         I knew myself beloved, save by the sense         All women have, a shadowy confidence     Half-fear, that feels its bliss nor asks for more,         I have learned new desires, known Love's distress         Sounded the deepest depths of loneliness.     I was a child at heart, and lived alone,         Dreaming my dreams, as children may, at whiles,         Between their hours of play, and Earth's broad smiles     Allured my heart, and ocean's marvellous tone         Woke no strange echoes, and the woods' complain         Made chants sonorous, stirred no thoughts of pain.     And if, sometimes, dear Nature spoke to me         In tones mysterious, I had learned so much         Dwelling beside her daily, that her touch     Made me discerning. Though I might not see         Her purpose nor her meaning, I had part         In the proud throbbing of that mighty heart.     But now the earth has put a tiring-cloth         About her face; even in the mountains' cheer         There is a lack, and in the sea a fear,     The glad, rash sea, whose every mood, if wroth         Or soothing mild, is dear to me as are         Joy's new-born kisses on the lips of Care.     Since I have known thee, Dear, all life has grown         An expectation. As the swelling grain         Trembles to harvesting, and earth in pain     Travails till Spring is born, so felt alone         Is the dumb reaching out of things unborn,         The night's gray promise of the amber morn.     I long to taste my pleasures through thy lips,         To sail with thee o'er foaming waves and feel         Our spirits rise together with the reel     Of waters and the wavering land's eclipse;         To see thy fair hair damp with salt sea-spray         And in thine eyes the wildness of the way.     I long to share my woods with thee, to fly         To some black-hearted forest where the trail         Of mortals lingers not, - to hear the gale.     Sweep round us with a shuddering ecstasy,         To feel, night's tumult passed, the cool soft hand         Of the untroubled dawn move o'er the land.     To swim with thee far out into the bay,         A trembling glitter on the waves, the shore         Glowing with noontide fervor, nevermore     To fear the treacherous depths, though long the way.         Sweet beyond words the sighs that breathe and blow,         The moist salt kisses, and the glad warm glow.     And when the unrest, the vague desires that rush         Over our lives and may not be denied, -         Gone in the tasting, - lure us where the tide     Of men sweeps on, let us forget the hush         Together, and in city madness drain         Our cup of pleasure to its dregs of pain.     Ever I need thee. Incomplete and poor         This life of mine. Yet never dream my soul         Craves the old peace. Till I may have the whole     My joy is my abiding, and what more         Of dreams and waking bliss the Fates allow         Comes as a gift of Love's great overflow.