Wednesday, October 20

alone

They were alone, but not alone as they
Who shut in chambers think it loneliness;
The silent ocean, and the starlit bay,
The twilight glow, which momentarily grew less,
The voiceless sands, and dropping caves, that lay
Around them, made them to each other press,
As if there were no life beneath the sky
Save theirs, and that their life could never die.

They feared no eyes nor ears on that lone beach,
They felt no terrors from the night; they were
All in all to each other; though their speech
Was broken words, they thought a language there --
And all the burning tongues the passions teach
Found in one sigh the best interpreter
Of nature's oracle -- first love -- that all
Which Eve has left her daughters since her fall.

-- Lord Byron Don Juan: Canto the Second