ou clad in white, my spouse:
Who placed that garland above thy heart
Which shall wreathe to-morrow thy bridal brows?
How quiet and mute and strange thou art!

And hearest thou not my voice that speaks?
And feelest thou not my hot tears flow
As I kiss thine eyes and thy lips and thy cheeks?
Do they not warm thee, my bride of snow?

Thou knowest no grief, though thy love may weep.
A phantom smile, with a faint, wan beam,
Is fixed on thy features sealed in sleep:
Oh tell me the secret bliss of thy dream.

Does it lead to fair meadows with flowering trees,
Where thy sister-angels hail thee their own?
Was not my love to thee dearer than these?
Thine was my world and my heaven in one.

I dare not call thee aloud, nor cry,
Thou art so solemn, so rapt in rest,
But I will whisper: Dolores, 'tis I:
My heart is breaking within my breast.

Never ere now did I speak thy name,
Itself a caress, but the lovelight leapt
Into thine eyes with a kindling flame,
And a ripple of rose o'er thy soft cheek crept.

But now wilt thou stir not for passion or prayer,
And makest no sign of the lips or the eyes,
With a nun's strait band o'er thy bright black hair--
Blind to mine anguish and deaf to my cries.

I stand no more in the waxen-lit room:
I see thee again as I saw thee that day,
In a world of sunshine and springtide bloom,
'Midst the green and white of the budding May.

Now shadow, now shine, as the branches ope,
Flickereth over my love the while:
From her sunny eyes gleams the May-time hope,
And her pure lips dawn in a wistful smile.

As one who waiteth I see her stand,
Who waits though she knows not what nor whom,
With a lilac spray in her slim soft hand:
All the air is sweet with its spicy bloom.

I knew not her secret, though she held mine:
In that golden hour did we each confess;
And her low voice murmured, Yea, I am thine,
And the large world rang with my happiness.

To-morrow shall be the blessedest day
That ever the all-seeing sun espied:
Though thou sleep till the morning's earliest ray,
Yet then thou must waken to be my bride.

Yea, waken, my love, for to-morrow we wed:
Uplift the lids of thy beautiful eyes.
A light at her feet and a light at her head,
Ho