thy soul allays its dearth,
Love's heaven is only compassed upon earth;
And by that love, in thine own Etain's eyes
Thou shalt find all God's untranscended skies.

As of old, as of old, with Etain that day,
Over the hills, and far away,
He roamed thro' the fairy forests of fern:
Two young lovers were they.

And God sighed in the sunset, and the sea
Grew quieter than the hills: the mystery
Of ocean, earth and sky was like a word
Uttered, but all unheard,
Uttered by every wave and cloud and leaf
With all the immortal glory of mortal grief;
And every wave that broke its heart of gold
In music on the rainbow-dazzled shore
Seemed telling, strangely telling, evermore
A story that must still remain untold.

Oh, _Once upon a time_, and o'er and o'er
As aye the _Happy ever after_ came
The enchanted waves lavished their faery lore

And tossed a foam-bow and a rosy flame
Around the whispers of the creaming foam,
Till the old rapture with the new sweet name
Through all the old romance began to roam.

XIV

And those two lovers only heard
--Oh, love is a dream that knows no waking--
Far away, one secret bird,
Where all the roses breathed one word,
And every crispel on the beach--
Oh, love is a sea that is ever breaking!--
Lisped it in a sweeter speech;
As hand in hand, by the sunset sea
That breaks on the shores of mystery,
They stood in the gates of the City of Pain
To watch the wild waves flutter and beat
In roses of white soft light at their feet,
Roses of delicate music and light,
Music and moonlight under their feet.
Crumbling and flashing and softly crashing
In rainbow colours that dazzle and wane
And wither and waken and, wild with delight,
Dance and dance to a mystic tune
And scatter their leaves in a flower-soft rain
Over the shimmering golden shore
Between the West and the waking moon,
Between the sunset and the night;
And then they sigh for the years of yore
And gather their glory together again,
Petal by petal and gleam by gleam,
Till, all in one rushing rose-bright stream
They dazzle back to the deep once more,
For the dream of the sea is an endless dream,
And love is a sea that hath no shore,
And the roses dance as they danced before.

XV

In othe