by W.B. Yeats.
Originally published in The Savoy (Leonard Smithers) vol.1 #3 (Jul 1896).
When my arms wrap you round, I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded in the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, where armies fled;
The love-tales wrought with silken thread
By dreaming ladies upon cloth
That has made fat the murderous moth;
The roses that of old time were
Woven by ladies in their hair,
Before they drowned their lovers' eyes
In twilight shaken with low sighs;
The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
Through many a sacred corridor
Where a so sleepy incense rose
That only God's eyes did not close:
For that dim brow and lingering hand
Come from a more dream-heavy land,
A more dream-heavy hour than this;
And, when you sigh from kiss to kiss,
I hear pale Beauty sighing too,
For hours when all must fade like dew
Till there be naught but throne on throne
Of seraphs, brooding, each alone,
A sword upon his iron knees,
On her most lonely mysteries.