Bright star! would I were stedfast as thou art
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart
Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors
No yet still stedfast, 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
Watching the moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors
