We met beneath the arbour, her white hands
Enclosed in satin gloves, fine hair smooth-dressed.
And calm, amid soft-breathing honeysuckle,
So drowsy in the summer noon, we sat
And shared a loving-cup, pledging one either
To the other through all our mortal days.

And yet within that brightness, shadows lay;
For now my lady sighed and slowly said,
"Ah, much as we desire, this cannot be;
It is a fond illusion born of deep
Regard and long attentiveness that both
Of us have nurtured in these fleeting months."

Her lyric voice dissolved in further sighs,
Perhaps to syllables she could not speak
Aloud, and therefore left unsaid, to spare
My saddened ear; (exquisitely adept
Her sensitivity had ever been,
Through constant self-defining of her heart.)

We sat in stillness for a while, until
My lady's hand I took, and eased the glove
Of satin from it that revealed her palm
And fingers sleekly satin too, alive
With vibrant warmth, sweet pulsing of her blood,
Immediate in palpable delight.

"My lady; this is no illusion dear--
Our feelings are too strong for that, and crave
Reality; they must be real, or else
We shouldn't feel them as we do from each
To each, from soul to soul; if such be named
Illusion, then they make a mock of us."

Now pensively, her plain brown eyes became
Instinct with deep significance, as though
Their depth grew fathomless, containing store
Of unarticulated thoughts new-born
Within her vivid spirit, not conveyed
By verbal mediation to my ear.

And glancing up, her glossy hair now held
A mirror to the noon-time sun, whose light
Adorned her like a maid of Flora there
Beneath the rustic bower of woodbine, rose,
And rare Akebia's purple blossoms
Depended rich amid five-fingered leaves.

My lady broke her silence with complaint--
"But meetings like this are so few; I feel
Our absences are driving us apart;
I need to know you more, or I shall back
Away, and turn to other solace from
A nearer source-- doubt not! I have the means."

I gazed on her with pity in my soul--
I ought to name her Oceania;
My lady has the ocean in her heart;
She has great depths; her spirit is the sea,
Her nature so nereidic. I therefore
Undertook to comfort her with these words:

"Look-- when a cloud has covered all the moon,
Her power to draw the tides is not annulled,
For that innate virtue remains by law
Immutable; thereby great oceans feel
Her influence as mistress of their ebb
And flow along each shoreline of the earth.

Thus absence does not equal lack of true
Intended presence, for the real unseen
Communings of a soul to soul obey
A higher law: the edict of pure love,
Decreeing two like souls together, joined,
Though yet distinct, the other to adore."

My lady paused serenely then, and how
The sunlight played upon her feather bangs.
Reluctantly we left the arbour, I
To go my way, she hers; affirming thus
The separateness of being; but we knew
The marriage of our spirits was achieved.