Echo

Christina Rossetti

  
    Come to me in the silence of the night;
    Come in the sparkling silence of a dream;
    Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
    As sunlight on a stream;
    Come back in tears,
    O memory, hope, love of finished years.
    O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
    Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
    Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
    Where thirsting longing eyes
    Watch the slow door
    That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
    Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
    My very life again though cold in death:
    Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
    Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
    Speak low, lean low,
    As long ago, my love, how long ago.