Sleep? Nay, comfort—with just a cloud
    Suffusing day too clear and bright:
Eve’s essence, the single drop allowed
    To sully, like milk, Noon’s water-white.

Let gauziness shade, not shroud,—adjust,
    Dim and not deaden,—somehow sheathe
Aught sharp in the rough world’s busy thrust,
    If it reach me through dreaming’s vapor-wreath.

Be life so, all things ever the same!
    For, what has disarmed the world? Outside,
Quiet and peace: inside, nor blame
    Nor want, nor wish whate’er betide.

What is it like that has happened before?
    A dream? No dream, more real by much.
A vision? But fanciful days of yore
    Brought many: mere musing seems not such.
Perhaps but a memory, after all!
    —Of what came once when a woman leant
To feel for my brow where her kiss might fall.
    Truth ever, truth only the excellent!