ON LILY STREET, NANTUCKET

ON Lily Street, where drowsy crickets hum, And two and two the summer lovers come, Straying so happily their island paths, Where the white candle flickers at a low-hung door, I see soft hooded figures cross a bit of moor— Hurrying, eager, they— To hear you play. Now as the moonlight slants on whitened roof, And old New England still gives austere proof Of bygone things in narrowed window glass, The guests sit quiet in the panelled rooms Content with half lights and half tinted glooms, Because they know that they— Shall hear you play. And I who lean upon the leafy sill Feel moonlight dreaming change to vagrom thrill, And looking forth as on some lantern screen, See, flitting o’er the stark old house-wall nigh. Soft shadows of your vivid melody. So—in an eerie way I hear you play. Till, on the house wall opposite my place I see wild Carmen’s bright poinsettia face; I see Grieg’s “Day break,” streaming up the sky. Upon the old Nantucket houses blank I watch Tannhouser’s Pilgrims climb in solemn rank, —Past windows grey—the while you play. Long on the bare screen grieves the “Butterfly.” Then, as her Oriental sorrows die, Forth doth the “Earl King” ride; The Schumann “Warum” drops its pensive leaves, Macdowell’s “Sea” its toppling billow heaves, Chaminades, “Dancing Fay” Trips, as you play. But ere your noble hands have given their gift Down on the town, the bells of Curfew drift, The candle gutters at the low-hung door. Yet, see; from this low window where I muse, All Lily Street doth spectrally suffuse, Glimmers each tiny pane. You call it “moonlight,” but I think that they The old Nantucketers, long passed away Peer forth to hear you play!