Bright Star

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art
  Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
  Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
  Of pure ablution round earth's human shore
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
  Of snow upon the mountains and the moors
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
  Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel forever its soft fall and swell,
  Awake forever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.