Chapter I: Children’s Kisses

So; it is nightfall then.
The valley flush
That beckoned home the way for herds and men
Is hardly spent:
Down the bright pathway winds, through veils of hush
And wonderment.
Unuttered yet the chime
That tells of folding-time;
Hardly the sun has set;--
The trees are sweetly troubled with bright words
From new-alighted birds.
And yet, ...
Here, round my neck, are come to cling and twine,
The arms, the folding arms, close, close and fain,
All mine!--
I pleaded to, in vain,
I reached for, only to their dimpled scorning,
Down the blue halls of morning;--
Where all things else could lure them on and on,
Now here, now gone,
From bush to bush, from beckoning bough to bough,
With bird-calls of _Come Hither!_--

Ah, but now ...
Now it is dusk.--And from his heaven of mirth,
A wilding skylark sudden dropt to earth
Along the last low sunbeam yellow-moted,--
Athrob with joy,--
There pushes here, a little golden Boy,
Still gazing with great eyes:
And wonder-wise,
All fragrancy, all valor silver-throated,
My daughterling, my swan,
My Alison.

Closer than homing lambs against the bars
At folding-time, that crowd, all mother-warm,
They crowd, they cling, they wreathe;--
And thick as sparkles of the thronging stars,
Their kisses swarm.

O Rose of Being at whose heart I breathe,
Fold over, hold me fast
In the dim Eden of a blinding kiss.
And lightning heart’s desire, be still at last.
Heart can no more,--
Life can no more
Than this.