Dear one, who wast chosen, ere time was made,
The heart of my heart and my wife to be;
Who cam’st, with the gifts of the gods arrayed,
To lighten the labors of life for me;
Ere yet I had looked on the face of thee,
My soul dreamed dreams and awoke and said:
“None other is worthier love than she,
And earth shall be heaven when we are wed.”
But woe as a burden on man is laid,
And the soul finds its vision not readily.
Between us came many a mocking shade,
That smiled with the smile of my fantasy,
And I thought, can it be I have met with thee?
Then the arrows of truth through the false were sped,
And I heard thy soul murmuring cheeringly,
“The earth shall be heaven when we are wed.”
Like streams in the hollows of hills that played,
Though sundered by league upon league they be,
That, slipping through tangles of sun and shade,
Meet, mingle and flow to the shoreless sea,
At last my soul met with the soul of thee,
And woes fell from me as leaves fall dead
When winds have wakened the sleeping tree,
And earth became heaven when we were wed.
ENVOI.
And now, though years like the birds may flee,
And death draw nigh us with noiseless tread,
I reek not how soon may the summons be,
For earth became heaven when we were wed.