O foolish dream, to hope that such as I
Who answer only to thine easiest moods,
Should fill thy heart, as o’er my heart there broods
The perfect fulness of thy memory!
I flit across thy soul as white birds fly
Across the untrodden desert solitudes:
A moment’s flash of wings; fair interludes
That leave unchanged the eternal sand and sky.
Even such to thee am I; but thou to me
As the embracing shore to the sobbing sea,
Even as the sea itself to the stone-tossed rill.
But who, but who shall give such rest to thee?
The deep mid-ocean waters perpetually
Call to the land, and call unanswered still.