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| TO thee, O fairest of the world, my love, | |
| I send the messengers that fly with song, | |
| And bear their precious gifts from heart to heart. | |
| They leave my lips here in the fragrant night | |
| To seek thy casement, opened to the moon, | 5 |
| Whose golden beauty moves the dreaming sea. | |
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| Awake from dreams, my love, as wakes the sea, | |
| Whose bosom stirs beneath the spell of love, | |
| And swells, enchanted by the urgent moon! | |
| Up through the flowery darkness flies my song, | 10 |
| Like bird bewildered in the maze of night, | |
| To flutter at the portals of thy heart. | |
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| Unto my yearning heart, O tender heart, | |
| Be tenderer than is the yielding sea | |
| Unto the moon! For what romance hath night | 15 |
| To offer, if it hold no flame of love? | |
| If love be not its echo, what is song? | |
| If love be absent, banish too the moon. | |
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| Tonight, O fairest, shines a lingering moon, | |
| Whose light makes lonelier the lonely heart. | 20 |
| Arise, beloved! I will tune my song | |
| To the wild carol of the vagrant sea, | |
| And sing to thee a wilder song of love | |
| Than sings the sea unto its god of night. | |
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| The roses drink with joy the dews of night, | 25 |
| Their pleasure secret from the placid moon, | |
| While I am thirsting for the dews that love | |
| Hath gathered purely to thy lips and heart. | |
| Thy heart, O loved one, is not as the sea | |
| That hath no memory of love or song. | 30 |
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| Thy heart must answer to my amorous song, | |
| As to the nightingale its mate, this night, | |
| Where roses droop above the sleeping sea. | |
| Thy lips must hush my own before the moon | |
| Shall ease its longing near the sea’s deep heart. | 35 |
| Awake, dear dreamer, to the voice of love! | |
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| Oh, hear my song, before the lapsing moon | |
| Bereave the night; or I, with grieving heart, | |
| Must wander by the sea, bereft of love! | |
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