| |
| WHEN the white iris folds the drowsing bee, | |
| When the first cricket wakes | |
| The fairy hosts of his enchanted brakes, | |
| When the dark moth has sought the lilac tree, | |
| And the young stars, like jasmine of the skies, | 5 |
| Are opening on the silence, Lord, there lies | |
| Dew on Thy rose and dream upon mine eyes. | |
| |
| Lovely the day, when life is robed in splendour, | |
| Walking the ways of God and strong with wine, | |
| But the pale eve is wonderful and tender, | 10 |
| And night is more divine. | |
| Fold my faint olives from their shimmering plain, | |
| O shadows of sweet darkness fringed with rain. | |
| Give me tonight again. | |
| |
| Give me today no more. I have bethought me | 15 |
| Silence is more than laughter, sleep than tears. | |
| Sleep like a lover faithfully hath sought me | |
| Down the enduring years. | |
| Where stray the first white fatlings of the fold, | |
| Where the Lent-lily droops her earlier gold | 20 |
| Sleep waits me as of old. | |
| |
| Grant me sweet sleep, for light is unavailing | |
| When patient eyes grow weary of the day. | |
| Young lambs creep close and tender wings are failing, | |
| And I grow tired as they. | 25 |
| Light as the long wave leaves the lonely shore, | |
| Our boughs have lost the bloom that morning bore. | |
| Give me today no more. | |
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