Page:Poems Dudley.djvu/51

Do you catch from pulsing breezes
 A tremulous, faint perfume,
Of the languid lilies sleeping
 On the throbbing heart of June?
Does the odor link the present
 To some June of other years,
When the snowy lilies sleeping,
 Knew no dream of care or tears?

Does a subtle, fragrant sadness
 Lapse around you,—not your own,—
Circling waves from deeper ocean,
 Where some pain has dropped a stone?
All things melt this summer evening,
 Rock is fluent; ice is wine;
Mighty nerve-lines, telegraphic,
 Pour your heart-beat into mine;

Deep to deep in passion calleth,
 Shallows can no answer give,—
Tossed by waves and tempest-driven,
 Nothing true in them may hive;—
From your deeps to-night a calling
 Sweeps my heights in pleading tone;
Calm to calm the cry returneth
 Height and depth are blent in one.

Klosterheim, 1878.