We had a bower among the beans,
My little love and I,
Where by his side as kings set queens
He throned me graciously;
The branching stalks made honied screens
For two who were but half as high;
We had a bower among the beans,
My little love and I.
We sate and toyed there hour by hour,
My little love and I,
Above our heads the beans in flower,
Above the beans the sky.
How softly fell the summer shower,
How softly rose the sea-wind's sigh,
As there we dallied hour by hour,
My little love and I.
And up that flowery avenue
At whiles my love and I
Would see, enlarging on our view
A subject train draw nigh.
Each brought for tribute something new,
A cowrie-shell, a butterfly,
Or starfish, which we took as due,
My little love and I.
The bean-flowers velvet-black, and white,
My little love and I
Found sweet to scent, and fair to sight
Beneath the morning's eye;
But oft with fallen blossoms dight
At eve, my love and I
Would pine, as sick with long delight,
And weep, we knew not why.
And later, in the golden gloom,
My little love and I
Would hear the sea-waves sadly boom,
And, gazing up on high,
Would see that parti-coloured bloom
Grow dusk upon the molten sky,
And feel it charactered with doom,
My little love and I.
The sea has made our realm his own
Since then; my love and I
Have seen the barren sands, our throne
And kingdom, overlie.
For me alone the waves long moan,
For me the sea-winds idle sigh;
My love is only dead and gone:
I live—and I am I!