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I MAURA dreams unwakened: | |
| The warm winds touch the bands | |
| That hold her hair; | |
| The call of a silver horn floats by; | |
| A lover tosses flowers into her hands. | 5 |
| |
| Maura dreams unwakened: | |
| She joins the maidens in their dance, | |
| Her limbs follow slow rhythms; | |
| A lover leads her into the shade— | |
| She moves as in a trance. | 10 |
| |
II What dim confusion | |
| Troubles her dream? | |
| What passionate caress | |
| Disturbs her spirit’s rapt seclusion? | |
| |
| Earth draws her close—how warm | 15 |
| Is lover-earth! Like a sleeping bird | |
| She gives herself….. Then suddenly | |
| She is a leaf whirled in the storm. | |
| |
| Somewhere in a quiet room | |
| Her soul, unstirred, | 20 |
| Dead, | |
| Or sleeping, | |
| Through the blind tumult hears afar | |
| The note of a horn like a silver thread. | |
| She has given her soul to an echo’s keeping. | 25 |
| |
III Who knows the mountain where the hunter rides | |
| Winding his horn? | |
| Maura, who heard it in her dream, | |
| Wakens forlorn, | |
| Too late to catch the tenuous thread | 30 |
| Of silver sound | |
| Which in the intricate, troubled fugue of earth | |
| Is drowned. | |
| |
IV Maura cannot follow over the hill; | |
| Her youth is land-locked as a hidden pool | 35 |
| Where thirsty love drinks deep— | |
| A shining pool where lingers | |
| The color of an unseen golden sky, | |
| A pool where echoes fall asleep: | |
| Until small restless fingers | 40 |
| Trouble the waters cool, | |
| Snatch at reflected beauty, and destroy | |
| The mirrored dream….. The pool is never still | |
| And broken echoes die. | |
| |
V The silver call has gone; but there is left to her | 45 |
| The gentleness of earth, | |
| The simple mysteries of sleep and death, | |
| Of love and birth….. | |
| There are faces hungry for smiles, and starving fingers | |
| Reaching for dreams. | 50 |
| |
| And like a memory are the wind-swept chords of night, | |
| And the wide melody of evening sky | |
| Where gleams | |
| A color like the echo of a horn. | |
| There is a far hill where winds die, | 55 |
| And over the hill lies music yet unborn. | |
| |
VI Maura lies dead at last; | |
| The body she gave to child and lover | |
| Now feeds flower and tree. | |
| |
| Earth’s arms are wide to her …. what breast | 60 |
| Offers such gentle sleeping? | |
| Her limbs lie peacefully. | |
| |
| From the dark West | |
| Comes down a note like the echoing cry | |
| Of one who rides through the dusk alone | 65 |
| After the hunt sweeps by. | |
| |
| It fades—the night wind is forlorn— | |
| Music is still: | |
| But Maura has followed the silver horn | |
| Over the distant hill, | 70 |
| Over the hill where all winds die. | |
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