onal of Time
Against the golden shores of mystery;

And ever as that long low change and chime
With one slow sob of molten music yearned
Westward, it seemed as if the Love sublime

Almost uttered itself, where the waves burned
In little flower-soft flames of rose and green
That woke to seaward, while the tides returned

Rising and falling, ruffled and serene,
With all the mirrored tints of heaven above
Shimmering through their mystic myriad sheen.

As a dove's burnished breast throbbing with love
Swells and subsides to call her soft-eyed mate
Home through the rosy gloom of glen or grove,

So when the greenwood noon was growing late
The sea called softly through the waste of years,
Called to the star that still can consecrate

The holy golden haze of human tears
Which tinges every sunset with our grief
Until the perfect Paraclete appears.

Ah, the long sigh that yields the world relief
Rose and relapsed across Eternity,
Making a joy of sorrows that are brief,

As, o'er the bright enchantment of the sea,
Facing the towers of that old City of Pain
Which stands upon the shores of mystery

And frowns across the immeasurable main,
Venus among her cloudy sunset flowers
Woke; and earth melted into heaven again.

For even the City's immemorial towers
Were tinted into secret tone and time,
Like old forgotten tombs that age embowers

With muffling roses and with mossy rime
Until they seem no monument of ours,
But one more note in earth's accordant chime.

O Love, Love, Love, all dreams, desires and powers,
Were but as chords of that ineffable psalm;
And all the long blue lapse of summer hours,

And all the breathing sunset's golden balm
By that aeonian sorrow were resolved
As dew into the music's infinite calm,

Through which the suns and moons and stars revolved
According to the song's divine decree,
Till Time was but a tide of intervolved

And interweaving worlds of melody;
_In other worlds I loved you, long ago_,--
The angelic citoles fainted o'er the sea;

And seraph citerns answered, sweet and low,
From where the sunset and the moonrise blend,--
_In other worlds I loved you, long ago_;

_Love that hath no beginning hath no end_;
O Love, Love, Love, the bitter Ci