Come in the Delicate Stillness of Dawn

Come in the delicate stillness of dawn,
Your eyelids heavy with sleep;
When the faint moon slips to its line—dim-drawn,
Grey and a shadow, the sea. And deep, very deep,
The tremulous stillness ere day in the dawn.

Come, scarce stirring the dew on the lawn,
Your face still shadowed by dreams;
When the world's all shadow, and rabbit and fawn—
Those timorous creatures of shadows and gleams;
And twilight and dewlight, still people the lawn.

Come, more real than life is real,
Your form half seen in the dawn;
A warmth half felt, like the rays that steal
Hardly revealed from the East; oh warmth of my breast,
O life of my heart, oh intimate solace of me…
So, when the landward breeze winds up from the quickening sea,
And the leaves quiver of a sudden and life is here and the day,
You shall fade away and pass
As—when we breathed upon your mirror's glass—
Our faces died away.