The Thought of Her

MY love for thee doth take me unaware,

When most with lesser things my brain is wrought

As in some nimble interchange of thought

The silence enters, and the talkers stare.

Suddenly I am still and thou art there,

A viewless visitant and unbesought,

And all my thinking trembles into nought

And all my being opens like a prayer.

Thou art the lifted Chalice in my soul,

And I a dim church at the thought of thee;

Brief be the moment, but the mass is said,

The benediction like an aureole

Is on my spirit, and shuddering through me

A rapture like the rapture of the dead.