The morning like a river runs
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With feet of music through the palms,
Come match your glory with the sun's,
And breathe with me a thousand balms;
The dawn is like an azure door
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Flung open wide for us to flee,
And watch along the surf-ringed shore
The heaving jewel of the sea.
And we will find some coral cave,
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Where you shall doff your linen fair,
By the foam-lipped up-running wave,
And free the marvel of your hair,
And match your whiteness with the spray,
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And match your strange eyes with the sea,
And, like a nereid, you shall sway
Then turn and, like a dolphin, glide
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Through hollow halls of glimmering jade,
Where solemn gleaming fish abide
For ever in a twilight glade;
And I shall watch you sink and pass,
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Then dive, and mid-way we shall meet,
Two dreams within a magic glass
That join dim lips with sea-salt sweet.
Then shall we hoist a snowy sail,
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And, in a boat with crystal floor,
Gaze down on shapes in rainbow mail,
Star-fish and branching madrepore,
And peacock fans and faery flowers
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That in a mystic garden dream,
Of moon-white sands and coral bowers,
Tranced deep in the pellucid stream.
There might I dwell as in your eyes,
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And never to the world return—
Of beckoning palms and tropic fern—
Yon island ringed with sun-kissed foam:
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O let us there our boat careen,
And I will build our hidden home,
And you shall be the island queen.
And I will serve you, morn and eve,
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Of golden fruits shall be our fare,
And garlands for your body weave,
And dive for pearls, to deck your hair;
And Love shall be the island laws,
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Love all its business, all its play,
The world and all its silly saws
A foolish legend far away.