| |
I. SHE stood against the Orient sun, | |
| Her face inscrutable for light; | |
| A myriad larks in unison | |
| Sang o’er her, soaring out of sight. | |
| |
| A myriad flowers around her feet | 5 |
| Burst flame-like from the yielding sod, | |
| Till all the wandering airs were sweet | |
| With incense mounting up to God. | |
| |
| A mighty rainbow shook, inclined | |
| Towards her, from the Occident, | 10 |
| Girdling the cloud-wrack which enshrined | |
| Half the light-bearing firmament. | |
| |
| Lit showers flashed golden o’er the hills, | |
| And trees flung silver to the breeze, | |
| And, scattering diamonds, fleet-foot rills | 15 |
| Fled laughingly across the leas. | |
| |
| Yea Love, the skylarks laud but thee, | |
| And writ in flowers thine awful name; | |
| Spring is thy shade, dread Ecstasy, | |
| And life a brand which feeds thy flame. | 20 |
| |
II. WINDING all my life about thee, | |
| Let me lay my lips on thine; | |
| What is all the world without thee, | |
| Mine—oh mine! | |
| |
| Let me press my heart out on thee, | 25 |
| Grape of life’s most fiery vine, | |
| Spilling sacramental on thee | |
| Love’s red wine. | |
| |
| Let thy strong eyes yearning o’er me | |
| Draw me with their force divine; | 30 |
| All my soul has gone before me | |
| Clasping thine. | |
| |
| If I follow, oh my lover, | |
| As the shadow follows shine, | |
| ’Tis because my heart’s run over | 35 |
| Full in thine. | |
| |
| Yea, all springs of life in motion, | |
| O belovèd one, combine, | |
| Mix as rain drops with the ocean, | |
| Mine and thine. | 40 |
| |
III. I CHARGE you, O winds of the West, O winds with the wings of the dove, | |
| That ye seek the beloved of my soul, breathing low that I sicken for love. | |
| |
| I charge you, O dews of the Dawn, O tears of the star of the morn, | |
| That ye fall at the feet of my love with the sound of one weeping forlorn. | |
| |
| I charge you, O birds of the Air, O birds flying home to your nest, | 45 |
| That ye sing in his ears of the joy that for ever has fled from my breast. | |
| |
| I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most fair. | |
| That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels consumed by despair. | |
| |
| O Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the waning of thee, | |
| A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let it be. | 50 |
| |
| Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extinguish the flames of love’s fire, | |
| Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it, and breaks its desire. | |
| |
| I rise like one in a dream when I see the red sun flaring low. | |
| That drags me back shuddering from sleep each morning to life with its woe. | |
| |
| I go like one in a dream, unbidden my feet know the way | 55 |
| To that garden where love stood in blossom with the red and white hawthorn of May. | |
| |
| The song of the throstle is hushed, and the fountain is dry to its core, | |
| The moon cometh up as of old; she seeks, but she finds him no more. | |
| |
| The pale-faced, pitiful moon shines down on the grass where I weep, | |
| My face to the earth, and my breast in an anguish ne’er soothed into sleep. | 60 |
| |
| The moon returns, and the spring, birds warble, trees burst into leaf, | |
| But Love once gone, goes for ever, and all that endures is the grief. | |
| |
