Vain Love

I would the wide waste waters of the deep
Had met above me ere my eyes had seen
The face of her who is my spirit's queen;
Or would that Death had met with me in sleep,
And taken me where none may laugh or weep.
Ere I had felt her hands on my hands lean:
From out the fields of life shall I not glean
One year of joy, while others harvests reap?

I would some snake about my life had wound,
Ere in the calm, ineffable and sweet.
Of that strange voice my soul had lain a space,
Faint, trembling in a Paradise of sound.
How shall I bear once more her look to meet
And feel we walk apart in separate ways?