| |
| 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. | |
| |
| 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. | |
| |
| “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. | |
| |
| “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.” | |
| |
| 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 |
| |
| 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. | |
| |
| 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. | |
| |
| “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. | |
| |
| “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. | |
| |
| “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 |
| |
| “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. | |
| |
