ALONG the woods the whispering night-airs swoon,
A single bird-note dies adown the trees,
Clear, pallid, mournful, droops the summer moon,
Dipped in the foam of cloudland's phantom seas;--
Soundless they heave above
The dim, ancestral home that holds my love.
How breathless still! A mystic glamour keeps
Calm watch and ward o'er this weird, drowsy hour:
Yon heaven's at peace, the earth benignly sleeps;
And thou, thou slumberest too, my woodland flower,--
Fair lily steeped in light
And happy visions of the marvellous night!
I waft a sigh from this fond soul to thine,--
A little sigh, yet honey-laden, dear,
With fairy freightage of such hopes divine
As fain would flutter gently at thine ear,
And, entering, find their way
Down to the heart so veiled from me by day.
In dreams, in dreams, perchance, thou art not coy;
And one keen hope more bold than all the rest
May touch thy spirit with a tremulous joy,
And stir an answering softness in thy breast:
O sleep! O blest eclipse!
What murmured word is faltering at her lips?
Awake for one brief moment, genial South:
Breathe o'er her slumbers,--waft that word to me,
Warm with the fragrance of her rosebud mouth,
Enwreathed in smiles of dreamful fantasy:
Come, whisper, low and light,
The name which haunts her maiden trance to-night.
Still, breathless-still! No voice in earth or air:
I only know my delicate darling lies,
A twilight lustre glimmering in her hair,
And dews of peace within her languid eyes:
Yea, only know that I
Am called from love and dreams, perhaps to die,--
Die when the heavens are thick with scarlet rain,
And every time-throb's fated: even there
Her face would shine through mists of mortal pain,
And sweeten death, like some incarnate prayer:
Hark! 'tis the trumpet's swell!
O love! O dreams! farewell, farewell, farewell!
