Death found strange beauty on that polished brow
And dashed it out.—
                                  There was a tint of rose
On cheek and lip.— He touched the veins with ice,
And the rose faded.—
                                    Forth from those blue eyes
There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt
Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence
Alone may wear.— With ruthless haste he bound
The silken fringes of those curtaining lids
Forever.—
                  There had been a murmuring sound,
With which the babe would claim its mother's ear,
Charming her even to tears.— The Spoiler set
His seal of silence.—
                                   But there beamed a smile
So fixed, so holy, from that cherub brow,
Death gazed—and left it there .—
                                                      He dared not steal
The signet-ring of Heaven.

Between her breasts is my home, between her breasts.
Three sides set on me space and fear, but the fourth side rests
Sure and a tower of strength, 'twixt the walls of her breasts.

Having known the world so long, I have never confessed
How it impresses me, how hard and compressed
Rocks seem, and earth, and air uneasy, and waters still ebbing west.

All things on the move, going their own little ways, and all
Jostling, people touching and talking and making small
Contacts and bouncing off again, bounce! bounce like a ball!

My flesh is weary with bounce and gone again!—
My ears are weary with words that bounce on them, and then
Bounce off again, meaning nothing. Assertions! Assertions! stones, women and men!

Between her breasts is my home, between her breasts.
Three sides set on me chaos and bounce, but the fourth side rests
Sure on a haven of peace, between the mounds of her breasts.

I am that I am, and no more than that: but so much
I am, nor will I be bounced out of it. So at last I touch
All that I am—not in softness, sweet softness, for she is such.

And the chaos that bounces and rattles like shrapnel, at least
Has for me a door into peace, warm dawn in the east
Where her bosom softens towards me, and the turmoil has ceased.

So I hope I shall spend eternity
With my face down buried between her breasts;
And my still heart full of security,
And my still hands full of her breasts.