Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-
Not in lone
splendour 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 mask
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 for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for
ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And
so live ever-or else swoon to death.