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I. AUBADE
THE DAWN is here—and the long night through I have never seen thy face, | |
| Though my feet have worn the patient grass at the gate of thy dwelling-place. | |
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| While the white moon sailed till, red in the west, it found the far world-edge, | |
| No leaflet stirred of the leaves that climb to garland thy window ledge. | |
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| Yet the vine had quivered from root to tip, and opened its flowers again, | 5 |
| If only the low moon’s light had glanced on a moving casement pane. | |
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| Warm was the wind that entered in where the barrier stood ajar, | |
| And the curtain shook with its gentle breath, white as young lilies are; | |
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| But there came no hand all the slow night through to draw the folds aside, | |
| (I longed as the moon and the vine-leaves longed!) or to set the casement wide. | 10 |
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| Three times in a low-hung nest there dreamed his five sweet notes a bird, | |
| And thrice my heart leaped up at the sound I thought thou hadst surely heard. | |
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| But now that thy praise is caroled aloud by a thousand throats awake, | |
| Shall I watch from afar and silently, as under the moon, for thy sake? | |
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| Nay—bold in the sun I speak thy name, I too, and I wait no more | 15 |
| Thy hand, thy face, in the window niche, but thy kiss at the open door! | |
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II. NOCTURNE
My darling, come!—The wings of the dark have wafted the sunset away, | |
| And there’s room for much in a summer night, but no room for delay. | |
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| A still moon looketh down from the sky, and a wavering moon looks up | |
| From every hollow in the green hills that holds a pool in its cup. | 20 |
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| The woodland borders are wreathed with bloom—elder, viburnum, rose; | |
| The young trees yearn on the breast of the wind that sighs of love as it goes. | |
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| The small stars drown in the moon-washed blue but the greater ones abide, | |
| With Vega high in the midmost place, Altair not far aside. | |
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| The glades are dusk, and soft the grass, where the flower of the elder gleams, | 25 |
| Mist-white, moth-like, a spirit awake in the dark of forest dreams. | |
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| Arcturus beckons into the east, Antares toward the south, | |
| That sendeth a zephyr sweet with thyme to seek for thy sweeter mouth. | |
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| Shall the blossom wake, the star look down, all night and have naught to see? | |
| Shall the reeds that sing by the wind-brushed pool say nothing of thee and me? | 30 |
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| —My darling comes! My arms are content, my feet are guiding her way; | |
| There is room for much in a summer night, but no room for delay! | |
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