Bright Star

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art —

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite…

No — yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever — or else swoon to death.