Chapter XII

It is the pleasant hour when lamps are lit;
Calmness and consolation over all;
The silences so deep that one could hear
A feather fall.

It is the hour when the belovèd comes,
Like to the sweetly soft and low
Wandering mist upon the breeze,
Sweetly slow.
She speaks no word at first--and yet I hark,
Hark to the soul of her, surprise
Its gleam and dark,
And then I kiss her eyes.

It is the pleasant hour when lamps are lit,
The vow
To love each other through the live-long day
From depths of heart made luminous by it.
Is with us now.

And then we speak of simple things;
The fruit we gathered in the close,
The flowers that disclose,
Between the verdant mosses thick,
Their almost wings;

And thought does blossom forth once more
At memory of a word so fair
Hid in a just remembered drawer,
In a letter of last year.