When the thought of you arrests my mind
Breaking all my thoughts and seeming kind
Moving me to think on nothing else
Never thinking once about myself
Such a sweet hope filling every sense
Intoxicating in its reticence
Invisible though all these feelings are
Implacable and slightly so bizarre
The stolid thought of you that steals my thoughts
Leaving me upbraided in uncanny knots
Changing strange the colour in my soul
Yet of your effect you hardly know
For how could such as you affect great change
Monumental in its outlandish range
When across the windborn sea you sleep
Daft, unknowing of the charm you reap
Deep within the heart of one so far away
Dreams of you by night and thinks by day
Somehow lost to some unyielding force
Flying cross the downs on speedy horse
Leaving off the dream of long ago
For the new hope that began to grow
When the milky starlight was aglow
Haunting me with subtle, silent know
Never can I fight it when it comes
The thought of you first sleeps and then it runs
Never returns to me for all the world
And never could you know that you’ve entailed
Such hope on one whose never looked on you
Has never known you as one ought to do
But craves to be so close and far at once
Perplexing me, the thought’s warm radiance
And feeling love that is not love, how so?
When of your look and thoughts I do not know
Nor of the light that plays upon your hair
Know nothing of your eyes, I would not dare
Betray outright of how you cause a blush
To sweep across my face, effect a hush
That germinates a hope within my heart
The greatest secret, I will never part
Betray the silence that my soul endures
The ebullition that enshrouds and lures
The fragility that composes me
When the thought of you has talked to me