Part 13 (1/2)

For, ah! what voice is this can make The vagrant heart within me ache?

That stirs an ancient tenderness, A new need to console, love, bless All things that 'neath this warm night sky Rejoice and suffer, age and die?

Hunger is in my heart like bliss,-- I stretch my arms out and I kiss, Gathered in sad and sweet embrace, The whole world's dark and simple face.

XXI

I wander forth. About my feet _Of the The sward is fresh and doubly sweet Second Singer._ The loved air on my salved brow.

Be still. Be still. For hearken: now A second voice behind the grove Uprises tremulous with love.

How hushed, how moody is the strain!

Pleading--O, surely, not in vain!

Sombrely rises every note, Lingers, and in dark dells remote Echoes until another come.

Philomel herself falls dumb.

Philomel herself falls dumb, Mindful of her shadowy home; Of a slowly falling surge Sounding its unending dirge On an alien ocean's verge; Of a rain-smitten tower that stood Fronting the calm, pale rolling flood; Of a slim sister's beauty glows, Fatefuller than a midnight rose; Of the birth, growth, and scheming dire, Of an accursed King's desire; Of night-long vigil, tongueless wrack, And the last exultation black O'er loathly offering, feasting sour, A fell cry in the lonely tower, Raging pursuit, flight's vain endeavour, And Vengeance stilling all for ever.-- Save the voice that nightly cries To the slowly wheeling skies Of unrest resolved in calm, Time's tears fallen like a balm, Sorrows that dead hearts have wrung, By the sad Enthusiast sung, Sweeter than Euphrosyne's tongue.

O tremulous voice! who is 't that shakes The night with fervour?

Through the brakes Softly I thread ... emerge, and now Across the rising meadow's brow I glimpse, beside the farther wood, Under the shadow of its hood, A glimmering shape that does not move.

It is the shepherd and his love: Close, close they stand, swooning and dim; Her shadowed face looks up at him, Her sighing breath his forehead warms; He sings, she leans within his arms.

_The Shepherd._ Now arched dark boughs hang dim and still; The deep dew glistens up the hill; THE SHEPHERD'S Silence trembles. All is still. NIGHT SONG.

Now the sweet siren of the woods, Philomel, pa.s.sionately broods, Or, darkling, hymns love's wildest moods.

Danae, fainting in her tower, Feels a sudden sun swim lower, Gasps beneath the starry shower.

Venus in the pomegranate grove Flutters like a fluttering dove Under young Adonis' love.

Leda longs until alight In the reeds those wings of white She hears beat the upper night.

Golden now the glowing moon, Diana over Endymion Downward bends as in a swoon.

Wherefore, since the G.o.ds agree, Youth is sweet and Night is free, And Love pleasure, should not we?

Song whose desire her kisses bless! _The Faun Song that wreaks wounds no lips redress, is struck O wounding song! Such loneliness with Sorrow._ Falls, like a stun blow from behind, That my hands grope, my eyes go blind.

I gasp....

Away, Away, O heart!

Lone, wretched Faun, depart, depart; Hide thyself, wretched, utterly, Climb to the clouds where none may see And mock thy causeless misery!

What joy is mine? what is 't I have: Immortal life? would 'twere a grave.

Thus, thus to suffer world-without-end, No love, no hope, no goal, no friend!

And the proud, morning Centaur, how Fares he? what lot doth Fate allow?-- More wretched yet! to live and be Perfection's lone epitome.

To feel in him a fecund power, And lack on which to spend that dower!...