Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

John Addington Symonds (1840–1893)

The Shepherd to the Evening Star

STAR of my soul, arise;

Show forth thy silver shining!

For thee the sunset skies

With love and light are pining:

The tents of evening spread for thee

Their rich and radiant canopy.

All day the tender lemon trees

Above the pathway bending

Drooped their still boughs in odorous ease,

Thine advent cool attending:

But now the little winds that blow

Sway their faint petals to and fro.

The dim mysterious avenues

Of olives interwoven

Respire again, and drink the dews;

And where their skirts are cloven,

Black funeral flames of cypresses

Shoot skyward from the purple seas.

My sheep and goats are housed: their bells

Keep silence on the meadow;

And solitude hath spread the fells

With her aërial shadow;

I scarce can hear a sound, or see

A single thing to hinder thee.

Come, star! Come, lover! Let me feel

The wonder of thy kisses:

Breathe in my brain the thoughts that steal

Through heaven’s blue wildernesses:

But when the maiden moon is free,

Leave me to sleep and dream of thee!