The thought of her presence (a bit of flesh and love)
Makes the dusk of night the dusk of perfume.
Sudden as a kiss her rings glow ;
Over the dusk strings her fingers flow as a wave.
O the breeze of melody of her heart and that of the night,
The ghost musical that dies into the pang of dream !
Through the breath of perfume,
(O music of musics !)
Down creeps the moon
To fill my cup of song
With memory's wine.
Across the song of night and moon,
(O perfume of perfumes !)
My soul, as a wind
Whose heart's too full to sing,
Only roams astray . . .
Down the tide of the sweet night
(O the ecstasy's gentle rise !)
The birds, flowers and trees
Are glad at once to fall
Into Oblivion's ruin white.
"Let day pass,
"Let night break," —
So the frogs sing morning and eve.
I too would run like Nicolette
Down aisles of rose and mignonette,
And stain my knees with midnight dew
Passing the ghostly gardens through,
If I should know that loverly
Young Aucassin awaited me!
And I could leave without regret
My warm white bed like Nicolette,
And flee from roof and candle-light
Into the deepest hour of night,
If by the ivy-shadowed wall,
I knew that Aucassin would call.
But I'll not tremble in the wet.
Nor bruise my feet like Nicolette,
Only to dream of his embrace,
Only to think I see his face.
Rachel sings sweet--
Oh yes, at night,
Her pale face bent
In the candle-light,
Her slim hands touch
The answering keys,
And she sings of hope
And of memories:
Sings to the little
Boy that stands
Watching those slim,
Light, heedful hands.
He looks in her face;
Her dark eyes seem
Dark with a beautiful
Distant dream;
Men all, and birds, and creeping beasts,
When the dark of night is deep,
From the moving wonder of their lives
Commit themselves to sleep.
Without a thought, or fear, they shut
The narrow gates of sense;
Heedless and quiet, in slumber turn
Their strength to impotence.
The transient strangeness of the earth
Their spirits no more see:
Within a silent gloom withdrawn,
They slumber in secrecy.
Two worlds they have--a globe forgot
Wheeling from dark to light;
And all the enchanted realm of dream
That burgeons out of night.
Be gentle, O hands of a child;
Be true: like a shadowy sea
In the starry darkness of night
Are your eyes to me.
But words are shallow, and soon
Dreams fade that the heart once knew;
And youth fades out in the mind,
In the dark eyes too.
What can a tired heart say,
Which the wise of the world have made dumb?
Save to the lonely dreams of a child,
'Return again, come!'
Roses are sweet to smell and see,
And lilies on the stem;
But rarer, stranger buds there be,
And she was like to them.
The little moon that April brings,
More lovely shade than light,
That, setting, silvers lonely hills
Upon the verge of night--
Close to the world of my poor heart
So stole she, still and clear;
Now that she's gone, O dark, and dark,
The solitude--the fear.
After the songless rose of evening,
Night quiet, dark, still,
In nodding cavalcade advancing
Starred the deep hill:
You, in the valley standing,
In your quiet wonder took
All that glamour, peace, and mystery
In one grave look.
Beauty hid your naked body,
Time dreamed in your bright hair,
In your eyes the constellations
Burned far and fair.
When I go free,
I think 'twill be
A night of stars and snow,
And the wild fires of frost shall light
My footsteps as I go;
Nobody--nobody will be there
With groping touch, or sight,
To see me in my bush of hair
Dance burning through the night.
At night, by the fire,
The colors of the bushes
And of the fallen leaves,
Repeating themselves,
Turned in the room,
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks
Came striding.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.
The colors of their tails
Were like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
In the twilight wind.
They swept over the room,
Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks
The disbeliever walked the moonlit place,
Outside of gates of hammered serafin,
Observing the moon-blotches on the walls.
The yellow rocked across the still façades,
Or else sat spinning on the pinnacles,
While he imagined humming sounds and sleep.
The walker in the moonlight walked alone,
And each blank window of the building balked
His loneliness and what was in his mind:
If in a shimmering room the babies came,
Drawn close by dreams of fledgling wing,
It was because night nursed them in its fold.
Night nursed not him in whose dark mind
The clambering wings of birds of black revolved,
Making harsh torment of the solitude.
The walker in the moonlight walked alone,