The frost may form apace,
The roses pine away:
NomÆa! if I see thy face,
Then is the summer day.
A word of thine, a breath,
And lo! my joy shall seem
To peer far down where life and death
Stir like a forded stream;
Or else shall misery sound
And travel in that hour
All utmost things in their shut round,
As a bee feels his flower.
Thought lags and cries Alas,
Love ranges quick and free.
Oh, figured clock and sanded glass,
They mark no term for me.
And since I can but rue
The calendar gone wrong,
And dials never telling true
If dreams be short or long,
Dear, from these arts that fail
To thee I will repair.
Till the last eve dance down the gale
With no star in her hair,
Be thou my solar chime,
Be thou my wheel of night,
Be thy bright heart, not ashen Time,
My measure, law, and light.