| |
| MY body sleeps: my heart awakes. | |
| My lips to breathe thy name are mov’d | |
| In slumber’s ear: then slumber breaks; | |
| And I am drawn to thee, belov’d. | |
| Thou drawest me, thou drawest me, | 5 |
| Through sleep, through night. I hear the rills, | |
| And hear the leopard in the hills, | |
| And down the dark I feel to thee. | |
| |
| The vineyards and the villages | |
| Were silent in the vales, the rocks; | 10 |
| I follow’d past the myrrhy trees, | |
| And by the footsteps of the flocks. | |
| Wild honey, dropp’d from stone to stone, | |
| Where bees have been, my path suggests. | |
| The winds are in the eagles’ nests. | 15 |
| The moon is hid. I walk alone. | |
| |
| Thou drawest me, thou drawest me | |
| Across the glimmering wildernesses, | |
| And drawest me, my love, to thee, | |
| With dove’s eyes hidden in thy tresses. | 20 |
| The world is many: my love is one; | |
| I find no likeness for my love. | |
| The cinnamons grow in the grove; | |
| The Golden Tree grows all alone. | |
| |
| O who hath seen her wondrous hair, | 25 |
| Or seen my dove’s eyes in the woods? | |
| Or found her voice upon the air, | |
| Her steps along the solitudes? | |
| Or where is beauty like to hers? | |
| She draweth me, she draweth me. | 30 |
| I sought her by the incense-tree, | |
| And in the aloes, and in the firs. | |
| |
| Where art thou, O my heart’s delight, | |
| With dove’s eyes hidden in thy locks? | |
| My hair is wet with dews of night. | 35 |
| My feet are torn upon the rocks. | |
| The cedarn scents, the spices, fail | |
| About me. Strange and stranger seems | |
| The path. There comes a sound of streams | |
| Above the darkness on the vale. | 40 |
| |
| No trees drop gums; but poison flowers | |
| From rifts and clefts all round me fall; | |
| The perfumes of thy midnight bowers, | |
| The fragrance of thy chambers, all | |
| Is drawing me, is drawing me. | 45 |
| Thy baths prepare; anoint thine hair; | |
| Open the window: meet me there: | |
| I come to thee, to thee, to thee! | |
| |
| Thy lattices are dark, my own. | |
| Thy doors are still. My love, look out. | 50 |
| Arise, my dove with tender tone. | |
| The champhor-clusters all about | |
| Are whitening. Dawn breaks silently. | |
| And all my spirit with the dawn | |
| Expands; and, slowly, slowly drawn, | 55 |
| Through mist and darkness moves toward thee. | |
| |
