'And how could you dream of meeting?'
Nay, how can you ask me, sweet?
All day my pulse had been beating
The tune of your coming feet.
And as nearer and ever nearer
I felt the throb of your tread,
To be in the world grew clearer,
And my blood ran rosier red.
Love called, and I could not linger,
But sought the forbidden tryst,
As music follows the finger
Of the dreaming lutanist
And though you had said it and said it,
'We must not be happy to-day,'
Was I not wiser to credit
The fire in my feet than your Nay?