Like naught but smooth sea-shells her delicate ears.

But how to tell about her mouth and eyes!
Her strange, sweet, maddening eyes, her subtle mouth!
Mouth in whose closure all love's sweetness lives,--
Eyes with the warm gleam of the lustrous south!

Fathomless dusk by night, the day lets in
Glimmer of emerald,--thus those eyes of hers!
Above the firm sweep of the moulded chin
The lips, than whose least kiss Heaven's gifts were worse.

Her bosom,--ah that now my head were laid!
Warm in that resting-place! But, heart, be still!
I will refrain, and break my dreams, afraid
To stir the yearning I can not fulfil.

Love, in the northern night of Brittany
Hear you no voice divide the night like flame?
In these gray walls the inmost soul of me
Is swooning with the music of your name.



NOCTURNE.


Soothe, soothe
The day-fall, soothe,
Till wrinkling winds and seas are smooth,--