Bright Star

1Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—

2Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

3And watching, with eternal lids apart,

4Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

5The moving waters at their priestlike task

6Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

7Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

8Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—

9No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

10Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

11To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

12Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

13Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

14And so live ever—or else swoon to death.