| |
| NOW doth not summer’s sunny smile | |
| Sink soft o’er that Ionian isle, | |
| While round the kindling waters sweep | |
| The murmured music of the deep, | |
| The many melodies that swell | 5 |
| From breaking wave and red-lipped shell? | |
| Love mine! how sweet it were to leave | |
| This weary world of ours behind, | |
| And borrow from the blushing eve | |
| The wild wings of the wandering wind. | 10 |
| Would we not flee away and find | |
| Some lonely cave beside the shore? | |
| One where a nereid dwelt of yore, | |
| And sheltered in its glistening bowers | |
| A love almost as fond as ours? | 15 |
| A diamond spar incrusts the walls, | |
| A rainbow light from crystal falls; | |
| And musical amid the gloom, | |
| A fountain’s silvery showers illume | |
| The further darkness, as with ray | 20 |
| And song it finds its sparkling way. | |
| A natural lute and lamp,—a tone, | |
| A light, to wilder waves unknown. | |
| The cave is curtained with the vine, | |
| And inside wandering branches twine, | 25 |
| While from the large green leaves escape | |
| The blooming clusters of the grape; | |
| Fruit with such hyacinthine glow | |
| As southern sunbeams only know. | |
| We will not leave it till the moon | 30 |
| Lulls with her languid look the sea; | |
| Sleep, shadow, silence for the noon; | |
| But midnight, love, to wake with thee, | |
| When the sweet myrtle-trees exhale | |
| The odors of their blossoms pale, | 35 |
| And dim and purple colors steep | |
| Those blossoms in their perfumed sleep; | |
| Where closed are the cicala’s wings, | |
| And no leaf stirs, nor wild bird sings, | |
| Lulled by the dusk air warm and sweet; | 40 |
| Then, kneeling, dearest, at thy feet, | |
| Thy face the only sight I see, | |
| Thy voice the only sound I hear, | |
| While midnight’s moonlit mystery | |
| Seems the full heart’s enchanted sphere, | 45 |
| Then should thy own low whisper tell | |
| Those ancient songs thou lovest so well; | |
| Tales of old battles which are known | |
| To me but from thy lip alone; | |
| Dearer than if the bard again | 50 |
| Could sound his own imperial strain. | |
| Ah, folly! of such dreaming hours | |
| That are not, that may not be ours. | |
| Farewell! thou far Ionian isle | |
| That lighted for my love awhile | 55 |
| A sweet enchantment formed to fade; | |
| Of darker days my life is made; | |
| Imbittering my reality | |
| With dreams of all that may not be. | |
| Such fairy fancies when they part | 60 |
| But leave behind a withered heart; | |
| Dreaming o’er all it hath not known; | |
| Alas! and is such heart mine own? | |
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