A Gift + 

My gift would find thee fast asleep, + 

And arise a dream in thee; + 

A violet sky o’er the roll and sweep + 

Of a purple and pallid sea; + 

And a crescent moon from my sky should creep + 

In the golden dream to thee. + 

Thou shouldst lay thee down, and sadly list + 

To the wail of our cold birth-time; + 

And build thee a temple, glory-kissed, + 

In the heart of the sunny clime; + 

Its columns should rise in a music-mist, + 

And its roofs in a spirit-rhyme. + 

Its pillars the solemn hills should bind + 

’Neath arches of starry deeps; + 

Its floor the earth all veined and lined; + 

Its organ the ocean-sweeps; + 

And, swung in the hands of the grey-robed wind, + 

Its censers the blossom-heaps. + 

And ’tis almost done; for in this my rhyme, + 

Thanks to thy mirror-soul, + 

Thou wilt see the mountains, and hear the chime + 

Of the waters after the roll; + 

And the stars of my sky thy sky will climb, + 

And with heaven roof in the whole. + 