Chapter II

Who art thou, in wind and darkness and soft rain
Thyself that robest, that bendest in sighing pines
To whisper thy truth? that usest for signs
A hurried glimpse of the moon, the glance of a star
In the rifted sky?
Who art thou, that with thee I
Woo and am wooed?
That, robing thyself in darkness and soft rain,
Choosest my chosen solitude,
Coming so far
To tell thy secret again,
As a mother her child on her folding arm,
Of a winter night by a flickering fire,
Telleth the same tale o’er and o’er
With gentle voice, and I never tire,
So imperceptibly changeth the charm,
As Love on buried ecstasy buildeth his tower,
Like as the stem that beareth the flower
By trembling is knit to power.
Ah! long ago
In thy first rapture I renounced my lot,
The vanity, the despondency, and the woe,
And seeking thee to know,
Well was’t for me, and evermore
I am thine, I know not what.