Chapter XXI

With withered hands I touch your brow
And part your hair and kiss--(as the day dies
And you are briefly sleeping by the hearth)
Beneath long lashes hid, your fervent eyes.

Oh the dear tenderness of sinking day!
I think of the long years whose flight we saw,
And suddenly your life in them appears
So perfect that my love is filled with awe.

And as in that time when we were betrothed,
Ardour again is in me and has brought
Desire to kneel and touch your beating breast
With fingers that are chaste as is my thought.