Last Sonnet

    Not in lone² splendour hung aloft the night

    And watching with eternal lids apart

    Like Nature's patient sleepless³ Eremite

    The moving waters at their priest-like 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 steadfast still unchangeable

    Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening⁴ breast

    To feel for ever its soft fall and swell⁵

    Awake for ever in a sweet unrest

    Still still to hear her tender-taken breath

    And so live ever—or else swoon to death.