A rainless darkness drew o'er the lake <br />As we lay in our boat with oars unshipped. <br />It seemed neither cloud nor water awake, <br />And forth of the low black curtain slipped <br />Thunderless lightning. Scoff no more <br />At angels imagined in downward flight <br />For the daughters of earth as fabled of yore: <br />Here was beauty might well invite <br />Dark heavens to gleam with the fire of a sun <br />Resurgent; here the exchanged embrace <br />Worthy of heaven and earth made one. <br /> <br />And witness it, ye of the privileged space, <br />Said the flash; and the mountains, as from an abyss <br />For quivering seconds leaped up to attest <br />That given, received, renewed was the kiss; <br />The lips to lips and the breast to breast; <br />All in a glory of ecstasy, swift <br />As an eagle at prey, and pure as the prayer <br />Of an infant bidden joined hands uplift <br />To be guarded through darkness by spirits of air, <br />Ere setting the sails of sleep till day. <br />Slowly the low cloud swung, and far <br />It panted along its mirrored way; <br />Above loose threads one sanctioning star, <br />The wonder of what had been witnessed, sealed, <br />And with me still as in crystal glassed <br />Are the depths alight, the heavens revealed, <br />Where on to the Alps the muteness passed.<br /><br />George Meredith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-como/
