In Three Days

So, I shall see her in three days And just one night, but nights are short, Then two long hours, and that is morn. See how I come, unchanged, unworn! Feel, where my life broke off from thine, How fresh the splinters keep and fine-- Only a touch and we combine!

Too long, this time of year, the days! But nights, at least the nights are short. As night shows where her one moon is, A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss, So life's night gives my lady birth And my eyes hold her! What is worth The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?

O loaded curls, release your store Of warmth and scent, as once before The tingling hair did, lights and darks Outbreaking into fairy sparks, When under curl and curl I pried After the warmth and scent inside, Through lights and darks how manifold-- The dark inspired, the light controlled! As early Art embrowns the gold.

What great fear, should one say, "Three days That change the world might change as well Your fortune; and if joy delays, Be happy that no worse befell!" What small fear, if another says, "Three days and one short night beside May throw no shadow on your ways; But years must teem with change untried, With chance not easily defied, With an end somewhere undescried." No fear!--or if a fear be born This minute, it dies out in scorn. Fear? I shall see her in three days And one night, now the nights are short, Then just two hours, and that is morn.