Poem by Edgar Lee Masters

The Awakening

When you lie sleeping; golden hair
Tossed on your pillow, sea shell pink
Ears that nestle, I forbear
A moment while I look and think
How you are mine, and if I dare
To bend and kiss you lying there.

  *  *  *  *  *

A Raphael in the flesh! Resist
I cannot, though to break your sleep
Is thoughtless of me--you are kissed
And roused from slumber dreamless, deep--
You rub away the slumber's mist,
You scold and almost weep.

  *  *  *  *  *

It is too bad to wake you so,
Just for a kiss. But when awake
You sing and dance, nor seem to know
You slept a sleep too deep to break
From which I roused you long ago
For nothing but my passion's sake--
What though your heart should ache!

  *  *  *  *  *

1. Recessional
2. Delilah
3. The World-Saver
4. In the Garden at the Dawn Hour
5. France

Dora Sigerson Shorter The Awakening ("Once she woke to fairyland")

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