ks:_

So many hopes in a wooing!--
Therein you could not deceive me;
Some things are sweeter for the pursuing--
I knew what you meant, believe me.--
Bunched bells of the blush pomegranate, to fix
At your throat ... six drops of fire they are....
Will you look where the moon and its following star
Rise silvery over yon meadow ricks?
While I hold--while I lean your head back, so--
For I know it is "yes" though you whisper "no,"
And my kisses, sweet, are six.

6

_Moths flutter around them. She speaks:_

Look!--where the fiery
Glow-worm in briery
Banks of the moon-mellowed bowers
Sparkles--how hazily
Pinioned and arily
Delicate, warily,
Drowsily, lazily,
Flutter the moths to the flowers.

White as the dreamiest
Bud of the creamiest
Rose in the garden that dozes,
See how they cling to them!
Held in the heart of their
Hearts like a part of their
Perfume they swing to them
Wings that are soft as the roses.

Dim as the forming of
Dew in the warming of
Moonlight, they light on the petals;
All is revealed to them;
All--from the sunniest
Tips to the honiest
Heart, whence they yield to them
Spice through the darkness that settles.

So to our tremulous
Souls come the emulous
Spirits of love; through whose power
All that is best in us,
All that is beautiful,
All that is dutiful,
Is made confessed in us,
Even as the scent of a flower.

7

_Taking her hand, he says:_

What makes you beautiful?
Answer, now, answer!--
Is it that dutiful
Souls are all beautiful?
Is't that romance or
Beauty of spirit,
Which souls of merit
Of heaven inherit?--
Have you no answer?

_She roguishly:_

What makes you lovable?
Answer, dear, answer!--
Is it not provable
That man is lovable
Just because chance or
Nature makes woman
Love him?--Her human
Part's to illumine.--
Have you no answer?

8

_Then, regarding him seriously, she continues:_

Could I recall every joy that befell me
There in the past with its anguish and bliss,
Here in my heart it has whispered to tell me,
Those were no joys like this.

Were it not well if our love could forget them
Veiling the _was_ with the dawn of the _is_?
Dead with the past we should never regret them,
Being no joys like this.

When they were gone and the Present stood speechful,
Ardent in word and in look and