Brownie

O come, nestle close in my bosom
    My Brownie, my Baby, my Nellie!
More sweet is thy little palm’s pressure
    Than dew on the breast of the lily.

Cling closer & closer, my Darling!
    And tenderly, through the dark cashes,
Send up the sweet glance of thy watching,
    Heat lightning with innocent flashes.

The moon looking down through the aspen
    On thy beauty sheds beauty no rarer;
So Baby beams up through my tresses
    White love to the white love I hear her.

With my hands on her head & his foot-palms,
    And the love that in death never flinches,
I bless her, & bless her, & bless her
    Through all of her rose-tinted inches!

Love’s hunger grows more with its feasting,
    I kiss her, & kiss her, & bless her,
My Baby, my Brownie, my darling,
    Till sleeping, in dreams I caress her.

Her lips have the hue & the sweetness
    Of the dewy blush-rose’s half-blossom,
In her neck is an apple-bloom odor,
    A lily scent cleanes to her bosom.

All over her pearly white body
    Is June with its grasses & clover,
I sniff it, I drink it, I eat it,
    I feast on it, over & over!

I know by her eyes at her waking,
    I know by her mouth in her keeping,
She comes from a far-away City
    The fugitive guest of our keeping.

My breasts are the white Via Lactæ
    She climbs to her place of abiding,
My eyes the blue windows she peeps in
    And catches her playfellows hiding!

She lies in her garden of lilies,
    I see in her delicate fingers
The pink-tinted buds of her Eden,
    Where the light of her Paradise lingers.

Nine times has the sickle moon sounded
    Since angels came down with my Baby
But I seem to have known her forever,
    O God; in the Gardens it may be!

In the long, long ago I have blessed her!
    The blessings I now breathe above her
Seem echoes of that Eden whisper,
    And I her Eternity’s Lovers!

O, closer! cling closer my Darling!
    My thrilled bosom aches for the pressure;
I’ll hold thee, & told thee, forever,
    And flood thee in love without measure.