How over-much I love thee, and how sweet
Were life with thee! O weary naked feet,
With me each onward path wilt thou not tread?
Or, if thou endest here thy quest," he said,
"Let me too bide with thee."
Made answer low
Lilith thereto: "Meseems not long ago
One stood at Eden's gate like thee. But thy face
Is darker, red thy lips. Of kingly race
I know thee. Say, whence comest thou, O prince?"
"Nay, then," he sighed, "an outcast I, long since
From Heaven thrust out; yet now, the curse is past,
Nor mourn I Heaven lost, if at the last
Thy love I win. Yea, where thou art, I know
Is Heaven. And bliss, in sooth" (oh, soft and low,
He said), "lives ever in thy smile."
His speech
Thus ended. And toward the sandy beach
He passed. Though long her eyes the stranger sought
Where curved the distant shore, she saw him not.

Soft through the trees the mottled shadows dropped
When Lilith in her pleasance sat. Half-propped
'Gainst mossy trunk her slender length. Her hair
In sunny web, enmeshed her elbows bare.
Slowly the breeze swayed the mimosas slight
As Eblis pushed aside the bent boughs light.
"O dame," he said, "it seemeth surely meet
Earth's richest gifts to lay at Lilith's feet;
Therefore I said 'unto the fairest one,
Things loveliest beneath the shining sun
I bring.' Since of all crafts in this young earth
I am true master, unto her whose worth
So much deserves, I bear this marble sphere,
Whose hollowed husk, well polished, gleaming clear,
Hides rarest fruit." Therewith the globe he showed,
The half whereof smooth-sparkling was: Half glowed
With carven work; embossed with pale leaves light,
And delicately sculptured birds in flight,
And clustered flowers frail. Lilith drew near
With beaming eyes, and laid the graven sphere
Against her smiling lips; o'ertraced the vine
That circled it with fingers slim. "Mine, mine
Is it, O prince?" she cried. "I know not why
Its beauty doth recall the winds' long sigh
That surged among the palms. Methinks is dead
Some summer-tide, that in its own sweet stead
Hath left upon the stone its imaging."
Eblis replied: "On earth, is anything
More fair? If such thou knowest, Lilith, speak.
That I, for thee, surely would straightway s