The Speaking Silence

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years. 

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose [wakening]1 should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where [thirsting]2 longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more. 

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!

I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ,
    as last Sunday morn I pass'd the church;	 
Winds of autumn! -- as I walk'd the woods at dusk,
    I heard your long-stretch'd sighs, up above, so mournful;	 
I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera --
    I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing;	 
... Heart of my love! -- you too I heard, murmuring low,
    through one of the wrists around my head;	 
Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells
    last night under my ear.

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow,
And the storm is fast descending
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds upon clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes here below
But nothing here can move me;
I cannot, I will not go.