As, calm with rapture, thou didst gaze on me,
Thy features in the spectral moonlight gleaming.

We did not speak, and yet my heart could tell
The hidden thoughts that thrilled within thy bosom.
No chaste reserve in spoken words may dwell--
With silence Love puts forth its purest blossom.

A voiceless dialogue! one scarce might deem,
While mute we thus communed in tender fashion,
How time slipped by like some seraphic dream
Of night, all woven of joy and fear-sweet passion.

Ah, never ask of us what then we said;
Ask what the glow-worm glimmers to the grasses,
Or what the wavelet murmurs in its bed,
Or what the west wind whispers as it passes.

Ask what rich lights from carbuncles outstream,
What perfumed thoughts o'er rose and violet hover--
But never ask what, in the moonlight's beam,
The sacred flower breathed to her dead lover.

I cannot tell how long a time I lay,
Dreaming the ecstasy of joys Elysian,
Within my marble shrine. It fled away--
The rapture of that calm untroubled vision.

Death, with thy grave-deep stillness, thou art best,
Delight's full cup thy hand alone can proffer;