When I Heard at the Close of the Day

"...And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his
way coming, O then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter—and all that day my food
nourish’d me more—and the beautiful day pass’d well,
And the next came with equal joy—and with the next,
at evening, came my friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to
me, whispering, to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same
cover in the cool night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was
inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy."
- Walt Whitman, 1819-1892