Beside the salt Lagoon!

My hut is small, but as you lie,
You see the lighted shore,
And hear the rippling water sigh
Beneath the pile-raised floor.

No gift have I of jewels or flowers,
My room is poor and bare:
But all the silver sea is ours,
And all the scented air

Blown from the mainland, where there grows
Th' "Intriguer of the Night,"
The flower that you have named Tube rose,
Sweet scented, slim, and white.

The flower that, when the air is still
And no land breezes blow,
From its pale petals can distil
A phosphorescent glow.

I see your ship at anchor ride;
Her "captive lightning" shine.
Before she takes to-morrow's tide,
Let this one night be mine!

Though in the language of your land
My words are poor and few,
Oh, read my eyes, and understand,
I give my youth to you!

The Temple Dancing Girl

You will be mine; those lightly dancing feet,
Falling as softly on the careless street
As the wind-loosened petals of a flower,
Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour.

And all the Temple's little links and laws
Will not for long protect your loveliness.
I have a stronger force to aid my cause,
Nature's great Law, to love and to possess!

Throughout those sleepless watches, when I lay
Wakeful, desiring what I might not see,
I knew (it helped those hours, from dusk to day),
In this one thing, Fate would be kind to me.

You will consent, through all my veins like wine
This prescience flows; your lips meet mine above,
Your clear soft eyes look upward into mine
Dim in a silent ecstasy of love.

The clustered softness of your waving hair,
That curious paleness which enchants me so,
And all your delicate strength and youthful air,
Destiny will compel you to bestow!

Refuse, withdraw, and hesitate awhile,
Your young reluctance does but fan the flame;
My partner, Love, waits, with a tender smile,
Who play against him play a losing game.

I, strong in nothing else, have strength in this,
The subtlest, most resistless, force we know
Is aiding me; and you must stoop and kiss:
The genius of the race will have it so!

Yet, make it not too long, nor too intense
My thirst; lest I should break beneath the strain,
And the worn nerves, and over-wearied sense,
Enjoy not what