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Strings in the earth and air
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Strings by the river where
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There's music along the river
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For Love wanders there,
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Pale flowers on his mantle,
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Dark leaves on his hair.
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With head to the music bent,
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The twilight turns from amethyst
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To deep and deeper blue,
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The lamp fills with a pale green glow
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The trees of the avenue.
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The old piano plays an air,
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Sedate and slow and gay;
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She bends upon the yellow keys,
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Her head inclines this way.
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Shy thought and grave wide eyes and hands
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That wander as they list —
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The twilight turns to darker blue
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With lights of amethyst.
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At that hour when all things have repose,
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O lonely watcher of the skies,
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Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
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Of harps playing unto Love to unclose
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The pale gates of sunrise?
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When all things repose, do you alone
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Awake to hear the sweet harps play
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To Love before him on his way,
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And the night wind answering in antiphon
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Till night is overgone?
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Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,
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Whose way in heaven is aglow
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At that hour when soft lights come and go,
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Soft sweet music in the air above
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And in the earth below.
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When the shy star goes forth in heaven
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All maidenly, disconsolate,
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Hear you amid the drowsy even
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One who is singing by your gate.
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His song is softer than the dew
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And he is come to visit you.
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O bend no more in revery
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When he at eventide is calling.
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Nor muse: Who may this singer be
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Whose song about my heart is falling?
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Know you by this, the lover's chant,
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'Tis I that am your visitant.
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Lean out of the window,
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Watching the fire dance
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For I heard you singing
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Lean out of the window,
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I would in that sweet bosom be
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(O sweet it is and fair it is!)
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Where no rude wind might visit me.
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Because of sad austerities
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I would in that sweet bosom be.
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I would be ever in that heart
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(O soft I knock and soft entreat her!)
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Where only peace might be my part.
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Austerities were all the sweeter
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So I were ever in that heart.
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My love is in a light attire
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Where the gay winds do most desire
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There, where the gay winds stay to woo
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The young leaves as they pass,
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My love goes slowly, bending to
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Her shadow on the grass;
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And where the sky's a pale blue cup
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Over the laughing land,
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My love goes lightly, holding up
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Her dress with dainty hand.
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Who goes amid the green wood
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With springtide all adorning her?
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Who goes amid the merry green wood
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Who passes in the sunlight
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By ways that know the light footfall?
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Who passes in the sweet sunlight
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The ways of all the woodland
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Gleam with a soft and golden fire —
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For whom does all the sunny woodland
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Carry so brave attire?
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O, it is for my true love
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The woods their rich apparel wear —
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O, it is for my own true love,
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That is so young and fair.
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Winds of May, that dance on the sea,
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Dancing a ring-around in glee
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From furrow to furrow, while overhead
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The foam flies up to be garlanded,
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In silvery arches spanning the air,
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Saw you my true love anywhere?
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Love is unhappy when love is away!
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Bright cap and streamers,
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He sings in the hollow:
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Come follow, come follow,
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Leave dreams to the dreamers
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In troop at his shoulder
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And the time of dreaming
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Bid adieu, adieu, adieu,
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Bid adieu to girlish days,
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Happy Love is come to woo
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Thee and woo thy girlish ways —
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The zone that doth become thee fair,
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The snood upon thy yellow hair,
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When thou hast heard his name upon
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The bugles of the cherubim
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Begin thou softly to unzone
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Thy girlish bosom unto him
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And softly to undo the snood
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That is the sign of maidenhood.
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What counsel has the hooded moon
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Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet,
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Of Love in ancient plenilune,
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Glory and stars beneath his feet —
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A sage that is but kith and kin
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With the comedian Capuchin?
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Believe me rather that am wise
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In disregard of the divine,
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A glory kindles in those eyes
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Trembles to starlight. Mine, O Mine!
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No more be tears in moon or mist
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For thee, sweet sentimentalist.
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Go seek her out all courteously,
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Wind of spices whose song is ever
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O, hurry over the dark lands
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For seas and lands shall not divide us
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Now, wind, of your good courtesy
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And come into her little garden
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And sing at her window;
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Singing: The bridal wind is blowing
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For Love is at his noon;
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And soon will your true love be with you,
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My dove, my beautiful one,
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The odorous winds are weaving
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My dove, my beautiful one!
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I wait by the cedar tree,
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White breast of the dove,
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My breast shall be your bed.
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Like a veil on my head.
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My fair one, my fair dove,
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From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,
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From love's deep slumber and from death,
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For lo! the trees are full of sighs
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Whose leaves the morn admonisheth.
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Eastward the gradual dawn prevails
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Where softly-burning fires appear,
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Making to tremble all those veils
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Of grey and golden gossamer.
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While sweetly, gently, secretly,
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The flowery bells of morn are stirred
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And the wise choirs of faery
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Begin (innumerous!) to be heard.
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O cool is the valley now
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And there, love, will we go
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For many a choir is singing now
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Where Love did sometime go.
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And hear you not the thrushes calling,
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O cool and pleasant is the valley
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And there, love, will we stay.
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Because your voice was at my side
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Because within my hand I held
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There is no word nor any sign
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He is a stranger to me now
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A man shall have sorrow
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Her smooth round breast;
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Be not sad because all men
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Prefer a lying clamour before you:
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Sweetheart, be at peace again —
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Can they dishonour you?
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They are sadder than all tears;
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Their lives ascend as a continual sigh.
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Proudly answer to their tears:
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How sweet to lie there,
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Where the great pine-forest
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He who hath glory lost, nor hath
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Found any soul to fellow his,
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Among his foes in scorn and wrath
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Holding to ancient nobleness,
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That high unconsortable one —
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His love is his companion.
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Of that so sweet imprisonment
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My soul, dearest, is fain —
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Soft arms that woo me to relent
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Ah, could they ever hold me there
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Gladly were I a prisoner!
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Dearest, through interwoven arms
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By love made tremulous,
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That night allures me where alarms
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Nowise may trouble us;
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But sleep to dreamier sleep be wed
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Where soul with soul lies prisoned.
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This heart that flutters near my heart
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My hope and all my riches is,
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Unhappy when we draw apart
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And happy between kiss and kiss:
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My hope and all my riches — yes! —
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For there, as in some mossy nest
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The wrens will divers treasures keep,
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I laid those treasures I possessed
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Ere that mine eyes had learned to weep.
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Shall we not be as wise as they
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Though love live but a day?
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Silently she's combing,
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Silently and graciously,
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With many a pretty air.
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The sun is in the willow leaves
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And on the dapplled grass,
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And still she's combing her long hair
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Before the looking-glass.
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I pray you, cease to comb out,
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Comb out your long hair,
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For I have heard of witchery
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That makes as one thing to the lover
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Staying and going hence,
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All fair, with many a pretty air
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And many a negligence.
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Lightly come or lightly go:
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Though thy heart presage thee woe,
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Vales and many a wasted sun,
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Oread let thy laughter run,
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Till the irreverent mountain air
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Ripple all thy flying hair.
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Lightly, lightly — ever so:
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Clouds that wrap the vales below
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At the hour of evenstar
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Lowliest attendants are;
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Love and laughter song-confessed
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When the heart is heaviest.
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Thou leanest to the shell of night,
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Dear lady, a divining ear.
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In that soft choiring of delight
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What sound hath made thy heart to fear?
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Seemed it of rivers rushing forth
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From the grey deserts of the north?
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Is his, if thou but scan it well,
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Who a mad tale bequeaths to us
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At ghosting hour conjurable —
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And all for some strange name he read
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In Purchas or in Holinshed.
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Though I thy Mithridates were,
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Framed to defy the poison-dart,
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Yet must thou fold me unaware
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To know the rapture of thy heart,
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And I but render and confess
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The malice of thy tenderness.
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For elegant and antique phrase,
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Dearest, my lips wax all too wise;
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Nor have I known a love whose praise
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Our piping poets solemnize,
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Neither a love where may not be
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Ever so little falsity.
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Gentle lady, do not sing
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Sad songs about the end of love;
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Lay aside sadness and sing
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How love that passes is enough.
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Sing about the long deep sleep
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Of lovers that are dead, and how
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In the grave all love shall sleep:
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Dear heart, why will you use me so?
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Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,
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Still are you beautiful — but O,
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How is your beauty raimented!
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Through the clear mirror of your eyes,
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Through the soft sigh of kiss to kiss,
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Desolate winds assail with cries
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The shadowy garden where love is.
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And soon shall love dissolved be
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When over us the wild winds blow —
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But you, dear love, too dear to me,
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Alas! why will you use me so?
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Love came to us in time gone by
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When one at twilight shyly played
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And one in fear was standing nigh —
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For Love at first is all afraid.
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We were grave lovers. Love is past
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That had his sweet hours many a one;
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Welcome to us now at the last
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The ways that we shall go upon.
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O, it was out by Donnycarney
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When the bat flew from tree to tree
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My love and I did walk together;
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And sweet were the words she said to me.
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Along with us the summer wind
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Went murmuring — O, happily! —
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But softer than the breath of summer
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Was the kiss she gave to me.
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Rain has fallen all the day.
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O come among the laden trees:
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The leaves lie thick upon the way
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Staying a little by the way
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Of memories shall we depart.
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Come, my beloved, where I may
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Now, O now, in this brown land
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Where Love did so sweet music make
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We two shall wander, hand in hand,
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Forbearing for old friendship' sake,
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Nor grieve because our love was gay
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Which now is ended in this way.
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A rogue in red and yellow dress
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Is knocking, knocking at the tree;
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And all around our loneliness
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The wind is whistling merrily.
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The leaves — they do not sigh at all
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When the year takes them in the fall.
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Now, O now, we hear no more
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The vilanelle and roundelay!
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Yet will we kiss, sweetheart, before
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We take sad leave at close of day.
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Grieve not, sweetheart, for anything —
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The year, the year is gathering.
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Sleep now, O sleep now,
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A voice crying "Sleep now"
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The voice of the winter
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O sleep, for the winter
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Is crying "Sleep no more."
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My kiss will give peace now
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And quiet to your heart —
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Sleep on in peace now,
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All day I hear the noise of waters
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Sad as the sea-bird is when, going
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He hears the winds cry to the water's
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The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing
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I hear the noise of many waters
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All day, all night, I hear them flowing
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I hear an army charging upon the land,
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And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:
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Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,
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Disdaining the reins, with fluttering ships, the charioteers.
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They cry unto the night their battle-name:
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I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.
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They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
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Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.
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They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:
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They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.
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My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?
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My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?
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