Volume 19 / Part 1 — Part I.

He Sang.81

I.

O wind of night! what doth she at this hour

In those high towers half lost in rock and brake?

Where is she? Sits she lonely in her bower?

If she is pensive, is it for my sake?

Perchance she joins the dance with other maids:

With whom? By whose are those white fingers pressed?

Perhaps for sleep her tresses she unbraids

While moonbeams fill the chamber of her rest.

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Tell her, O wind! that I have laid my head

Here, on the rough stem of the prostrate pine

Which leans across the dried-up torrent's bed,

And dream at times her face, and dream it mine.

Once in the palm-grove she looked back on me;

A wild brier caught her zone: I saw it fall:

Large is the earth, the sun, the stars, the sea—

For me that rosy girdle clasps them all.

II.

By night I crossed the tremulous poplar bound

Which cools the south wind with its watery bower;

I heard the river's murmur, mid that sound,

And smelt the fragrance of the trampled flower.

Where that pure crystal makes thy morning bath

A white tent glimmered. Round it, rank on rank,

The crimson oleanders veiled the path,

And bent or rose, as swelled the breeze or sank.

I entered not. Beside that river's brim

I sat. Thy fawn, with trailing cord, drew near:

When from my knee its head it lifted, dim

Seemed those dark eyes, by day so large and clear.

Go back, poor fawn, and house thee with thy kind!

Where, amid rocks and mountains cold with snow,

Through forests sweep the branching hart and hind;

Go back: go up: together let us go.

III

Tell her that boasts—that slender is and tall—

I have a cypress in a sunny space:

Tell her that blushes, by my garden wall

A rose-tree blushes, kindling all the place.

Tell her that sweetly sings and softly moves,

A white swan winds all night below my trees;

My nightingale attunes the moon-lit groves—

Can I not portion out my heart with these?

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If I were dead, my cypress would lament,

My rose-tree shed its leaves upon my grave,

My nightingale weep long in forest tent—

She would not mourn me dead that scorns to save.

IV.

Thou cam'st, thou cam'st; and with thee came delight,

Not mine alone. The little flowers and leaves

Shook at the first gleam of thy garment white;

And still yon myrtle thrills, yon almond heaves.

Thou spak'st! That voice, methinks, is heard on high!

The buds and blooms in every amaranth wreath

By angels worn expand in ecstasy;

And in pure light a heavenlier fragrance breathe.

Hail, Land that gav'st her birth! Hail, precinct old!

Hail, ancient Race, the Lebanonian crown!

The Turk hath empire, and the Frank hath gold:

Virtue and Beauty, these are thy renown!

V.

Thou wentest: with thy going came my night:

As some deep vale when sudden sinks the sun,

Deep, yet suspended on the mountain height

And girt by snows, am I when thou art gone.

With death those hills, so late all amethyst,

At once are clad: the streams are filmed with ice:

The golden ether changeth into mist:

Cold drops run down the beetling precipice:

The instant darkness cometh as a wind,

Or falleth as the falling of a pall:—

Return, my light of life, my better mind,

My spirit's day, my hope, my strength, mine all!

VI.

Breathe healthful zephyrs, airs of Paradise,

Breathe gently on that alabaster brow;

Shake the dark lashes of those violet eyes;

Flatter those lids that such high grace allow.

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Those cheeks, pure lilies, capture with sweet stealth,

And warm with something of a rose-like glow;

Those tremulous smiles, costlier than miser's wealth,

Draw out; those magic tresses backward blow!

Thus much is yours. 'Tis mine where once she strayed

To cull sad flowers that ne'er shall meet her sight;

To watch, close shrouded in the tall rock's shade,

High up one little casement's glimmering light.

VII.

Seest thou, O maid! some star by us unseen,

Buried from us in depths of starless space?

Know'st thou some joy of lesser joys the queen,

That lights so sweet a mystery in thy face?

That face is as the face of them that bask

In some great tidings, or the face of one

Who late hath set his hand upon some task

By God ordained, that shall for God be done.

That light is as the light of them who bent—

That shepherd choir—above the Babe new born:

Upward from Him thy day is ever sent,

A lifelong kindling of the Bethlehem morn.

VIII.

Since that strange moment, Love was as a breeze,

And I a leaf wafted by it along:

Onward 'twixt magic heavens and mystic seas

We passed. If I was weak, yet Love was strong.

On, ever on, through mountainous defiles,

By Love sustained, upborne, on piloted,

I wound o'er laughing lakes and happy isles;

I asked not whither, and I felt no dread.

I breathed, methought, some everlasting spring:

I passed, methought, in endless, aimless quest

(A dew-drop hanging on an eagle's wing)

Through some rich heaven and ever-deepening West.

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That dream had end. Once more I saw her face:

No love it looked: the sweet lips breathed no sound:

Then fell I, stone-like, through the fields of space,

And lay, dead bulk, upon the bleeding ground.

IX.

River that windest in thy jewell'd bed,

The palms of her soft feet beside thee move:

But gentleness and peace are round thee spread,

And therefore I am gone from what I love.

Nightly on thee the stars thou lov'st shall gaze:

Thee and thy heaven no envious cloud can sever:

In vain to her I love mine eyes I raise;

And therefore, happy stream, farewell for ever!

Pale passion slays or dies. I would die young,

Live while I live; then sink without a sigh,

As some swift wave, from central ocean sprung,

Subsides into the flat tranquillity.

X.

O heart whereon her Name was graved so long!

Heart pressed at last to hers, henceforth be snow!

For love's sake let me do to love no wrong:

There are who watch her. To the wars I go.

There are that watch her: and in fields far off

There are that wait my banner, name my name;

My House was ne'er the upstart Moslem's scoff:

Its orphaned heir his fathers will not shame.

This is the grove where, by yon meeting streams,

She too her love confessed—how falteringly!

From that glad hour a Church to me it seems:

I leave it: I must leave it though I die.

Here as I slept, an Angel, not to sense

Revealed, above me traced the sacred sign:

“Here is Love's palace: Duty calls thee hence:

Alone where Duty stands are Church and Shrine.”

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