from Canto II

181

The coast—I think it was the coast that I
     Was just describing—Yes, it was the coast—
Lay at this period quiet as the sky,
    The sands untumbled, the blue waves untost,
And all was stillness, save the sea-bird’s cry,
    And dolphin’s leap, and little billow crost
By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret
Against the boundary it scarcely wet.

182

And forth they wander’d, her sire being gone,
     As I have said, upon an expedition;
And mother, brother, guardian, she had none,
     Save Zoe, who although with due precision
She waited on her lady with the sun,
     Thought daily service was her only mission,
Bringing warm water, wreathing her long tresses,
And asking now and then for cast-off dresses.

183

It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded
     Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill,
Which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded,
     Circling all nature, hush’d, and dim, and still,
With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded
     On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill
Upon the other, and the rosy sky,
With one star sparkling through it like an eye.

184

And thus they wander’d forth, and hand in hand,
     Over the shining pebbles and the shells,
Glided along the smooth and harden’d sand,
     And in the worn and wild receptacles
Work’d by the storms, yet work’d as it were plann’d,
    In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells,
They turn’d to rest; and, each clasp’d by an arm,
Yielded to the deep twilight’s purple charm.

185

They look’d up to the sky, whose floating glow
     Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright;
They gazed upon the glittering sea below,
     Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight;
They heard the wave’s splash, and the wind so low,
     And saw each other’s dark eyes darting light
Into each other—and, beholding this,
Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss;

186

A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love,
     And beauty, all concentrating like rays
Into one focus, kindled from above;
     Such kisses as belong to early days,
Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move,
     And the blood’s lava, and the pulse a blaze,
Each kiss a heart-quake,—for a kiss’s strength,
I think, it must be reckon’d by its length.

187

By length I mean duration; theirs endured
     Heaven knows how long—no doubt they never reckon’d;
And if they had, they could not have secured
     The sum of their sensations to a second:
They had not spoken; but they felt allured,
     As if their souls and lips each other beckon’d,
Which, being join’d, like swarming bees they clung—
Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung.

188

They were alone, but not alone as they
     Who shut in chambers think it loneliness;
The silent ocean, and the starlight bay,
    The twilight glow, which momently grew less,
The voiceless sands, and dropping caves, that lay
     Around them, made them to each other press,
As if there were no life beneath the sky
Save theirs, and that their life could never die.

189

They fear’d no eyes nor ears on that lone beach,
     They felt no terrors from the night, they were
All in all to each other: though their speech
     Was broken words, they thought a language there,—
And all the burning tongues the passions teach
     Found in one sigh the best interpreter
Of nature’s oracle—first love,—that all
Which Eve has left her daughters since her fall.

190

Haide spoke not of scruples, ask’d no vows,
     Nor offer’d any; she had never heard
Of plight and promises to be a spouse,
     Or perils by a loving maid incurr’d;
She was all which pure ignorance allows,
     And flew to her young mate like a young bird;
And, never having dreamt of falsehood, she
Had not one word to say of constancy.