Sonnet XXVI: Mid-Rapture
Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love;
Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes,
Even now, as for our love—world’s new sunrise,
Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above
All modulation of the deep—bowered dove,
Is like a hand laid softly on the soul;
Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control
Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:—
What word can answer to thy word,—what gaze
To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere
My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there
Light—circled in a heaven of deep—drawn rays?
What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove,
O lovely and beloved, O my love?
