Ford Madox Hueffer

SHADOWED by your dear hair, your dear kind eyes

Look on wine-purple seas, whitened afar

With marble foam, where the dim islands are.

We sit forgetting. For the great pines rise

Above dark cypress to the dim white skies

So clear and black and still—to one great star.

The marble dryads and the veined white jar

Gleam from the grove. Glimmering, the white owl flies

In the dark shade….
If ever life was harsh

Here we forget—or ever friends turned foes.

The sea cliffs beetle down above the marsh

And through sea-holly the black panther goes.

And in the shadows of this secret place

Your kind, dear eyes shine in your dear, dear face.