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IN silence slept the mossy ground, | |
Forgetting bird and breeze; | |
In towering silence slept around | |
The Spanish chestnut-trees; | |
Their trailing blossom, feathery-fair, | 5 |
Made heavy sweetness in the air. | |
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All night she pondered, long and long, | |
Alone with lake and lawn; | |
She heard a soft untimely song, | |
But slept before the dawn: | 10 |
When eyes no more can wake and weep, | |
A pensive wisdom comes with sleep. | |
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O love, she said, O man of men, | |
O passionate and true! | |
Not once in all these years again | 15 |
As once we did we do; | |
What need the dreadful end to tell? | |
We know it and we knew it well. | |
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O love, she said, O king of kings, | |
My master and my joy, | 20 |
Are we too young for bitter things | |
Who still are girl and boy? | |
Too young we won, we cherish yet | |
That dolorous treasure of regret. | |
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Then while so late the heavens delayed | 25 |
The solemn trance to break, | |
Her sad desiring eyes were stayed | |
Beyond the lucid lake; | |
She saw the grey-blue mountains stand, | |
Great guardians of the charmèd land. | 30 |
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Above her brows she wove and wound | |
Her gold Hellenic hair; | |
She stood like one whom kings have crowned | |
And God has fashioned fair; | |
So sweet on wakened eyes will gleam | 35 |
The flying phantom of a dream. | |
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Or so, inarched in veiling vine, | |
The Syran priestess sees | |
Those amethystine straits enshrine | |
The sleeping Cyclades; | 40 |
For Delos height is purple still, | |
The old unshaken holy hill. | |
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O love, she said, tho sin be sin, | |
And woe be bitter woe, | |
Short-lived the hearts they house within, | 45 |
And they like those will go; | |
The primal Beauty, first and fair, | |
Is evermore and everywhere. | |
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And when the faint and fading star | |
In early skies is sweet, | 50 |
In silence thither from afar | |
Thy heart and mine shall meet; | |
Deep seas our winged desire shall know, | |
And lovely summer, lovely snow. | |
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And whensoever bards shall sing | 55 |
However saints shall pray | |
Whatever sweet and happy thing | |
The painter brings to-day, | |
Their heavenly souls in heaven shall be, | |
And thou with these, and I with thee. | 60 |
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And God,she said, and hushed a while, | |
And God,but, half begun, | |
Thro tears serener than a smile, | |
Her song beheld the sun: | |
When souls no more can dream and pray, | 65 |
Celestial hope will dawn with day. | |
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