The Second Flood

How could I know, how could I guess     That here was your great happiness--     In mine? And how could I know     Your love infinite must grow?     Suddenly at dawn I wake     To see the cruse of colour break     Over the East, and then the gray     Creep up with light of common day ...     No, no, no! again that bright     Flashing, flushing, flooding light     Leading on day, until I ache     With love to see the dark world wake.     O, with such second flood your love     Painted my earth and heaven above,     With such wild magnificence     As bruised my heart in every sense,     In every nerve. Was ever man     Fit this renewed love to sustain?     Now in these days when Autumn's leaf     Is red and gold, and for a brief     Day the earth flowers ere it dies,     What if Spring came with new surprise,     Came ere the aspen shivered bare     Or the beech coins glittered in cold air,     Before the rough wind the maple stripped     And this bare moon on bare boughs stepped!     Vain thought--O, yet not wholly vain:     Even to me Love has come again,     Moving from your quick breast where he     Fluttered in his wondering infancy.