• What thing unto mine ear
• Wouldst thou convey,—what secret thing,
• O wandering water ever whispering?
• Surely thy speech shall be of her.
• Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer,
• What message dost thou bring?

• Say, hath not Love leaned low
• This hour beside thy far well-head,
• And there through jealous hollowed fingers said
• 10 The thing that most I long to know,—
• Murmuring with curls all dabbled in thy flow
• And washed lips rosy red?

• He told it to thee there
• Where thy voice hath a louder tone;
• But where it welters to this little moan
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• His will decrees that I should hear.
• Now speak: for with the silence is no fear,
• And I am all alone.

• Shall Time not still endow
• 20 One hour with life, and I and she
• Slake on love's lips the thirst of memory?
• Say, stream; lest l Love should disavow
• Thy service, and the bird upon the bough
• Sing first to tell it me.

• What whisperest thou? Nay, why
• Name the dead hours? I mind them well:
• Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell
• With desolate eyes to know them by.
• That hour must still be born ere it can die:
• 30 Of that I'd have thee tell.

• But hear, before thou speak!
• Withhold, I pray, the vain behest
• That while the maze hath still its bower for quest
• My burning heart should cease to seek.
• Be sure that Love ordained for souls more meek
• His roadside dells of rest.

• Stream, when this silver thread
• In flood-time is a torrent brown,
• May any bulwark bind thy foaming crown?
• 40 Shall not the waters surge and spread
• And to the crannied boulders of their bed
• Still shoot the dead leaves down?

• Let no rebuke find place
• In speech of thine: or it shall prove
• That thou dost ill expound the words of Love,
• Even as thine eddy's rippling race
• Would blur the perfect image of his face.
• I will have none thereof.

• O learn and understand
• 50 That 'gainst the wrongs himself did wreak
• Love sought her aid; until her shadowy cheek
• And eyes beseeching gave command;
• And compassed in her close compassionate hand
• My heart must burn and speak.

• For then at last we spoke
• What eyes so oft had told to eyes
• Through that long-lingering silence whose half-sighs
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• Alone the buried secret broke,
• Which with snatched hands and lips' reverberate stroke
• 60 Then from the heart did rise.

• But she is far away
• Now; nor the hours of night grown hoar
• Bring yet to me, long gazing from the door,
• The wind-stirred robe of roseate grey
• And rose-crown of the hour that leads the day
• When we shall meet once more.

• Dark as thy blinded wave
• When brimming midnight floods the glen,—
• Bright as the laughter of thy runnels when
• 70 The dawn brings all the light they crave;
• Even so these hours to wound and that to save
• Are sisters in Love's ken.

• Oh sweet her bending grace
• Then when I kneel beside her feet;
• And sweet her eyes' o'erhanging heaven; and sweet
• The gathering folds of her embrace;
• And her fall'n hair at last shed round my face
• When breaths and tears shall meet.

• Beneath her sheltering hair,
• 80 In the warm silence near her breast,
• Our kisses and our sobs shall sink to rest;
• As in some still trance made aware
• That day and night have wrought to fulness there
• And Love has built our nest.

• And as in the dim grove,
• When the rains cease that hushed them long,
• 'Mid glistening boughs the song-birds wake to song,—
• So from our hearts deep-shrined in love,
• While the leaves throb beneath, around, above,
• 90 The quivering notes shall throng.

• Till tenderest words found vain
• Draw back to wonder mute and deep,
• And closed lips in closed arms a silence keep,
• Subdued by memory's circling strain,—
• The wind-rapt sound that the wind brings again
• While all the willows weep.

• Then by her summoning art
• Shall memory conjure back the sere
• Autumnal Springs, from many a dying year
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• 100 Born dead; and, bitter to the heart,
• The very ways where now we walk apart
• Who then shall cling so near.

• And with each thought new-grown,
• Some sweet caress or some sweet name
• Low breathed shall let me know her thought the same;
• Making me rich with every tone
• And touch of the dear heaven so long unknown
• That filled my dreams with flame.

• Pity and love shall burn
• 110 In her pressed cheek and cherishing hands;
• And from the living spirit of love that stands
• Between her lips to soothe and yearn,
• Each separate breath shall clasp me round in turn
• And loose my spirit's bands.

• Oh passing sweet and dear,
• Then when the worshipped form and face
• Are felt at length in darkling close embrace;
• Round which so oft the sun shone clear,
• With mocking light and pitiless atmosphere,
• 120 In many an hour and place.

• Ah me! with what proud growth
• Shall that hour's thirsting race be run;
• While, for each several sweetness still begun
• Afresh, endures love's endless drouth:
• Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, sweet mouth,
• Each singly wooed and won.

• Yet most with the sweet soul
• Shall love's espousals then be knit;
• What time the governing cloud sheds peace from it
• 130 O'er tremulous wings that touch the goal,
• And on the unmeasured height of Love's control
• The lustral fires are lit.

• Therefore, when breast and cheek
• Now part, from long embraces free,—
• Each on the other gazing shall but see
• A self that has no need to speak:
• All things unsought, yet nothing more to seek,—
• One love in unity.

• O water wandering past,—
• 140 Albeit to thee I speak this thing,
• O water, thou that wanderest whispering,
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• Thou keep'st thy counsel to the last.
• What spell upon thy bosom should Love cast,
• Its secret thence to wring?

• Nay, must thou hear the tale
• Of the past days,—the heavy debt
• Of life that obdurate time withholds,—ere yet
• To win thine ear these prayers prevail,
• And by thy voice Love's self with high All-hail
• 150 Yield up the amulet?

• How should all this be told?—
• All the sad sum of wayworn days;—
• Heart's anguish in the impenetrable maze;
• And on the waste uncoloured wold
• The visible burthen of the sun grown cold
• And the moon's labouring gaze?

• Alas! shall hope be nurs'd
• On life's all-succouring breast in vain,
• And made so perfect only to be slain?
• 160 Or shall not rather the sweet thirst
• Even yet rejoice the heart with warmth dispers'd
• And strength grown fair again?

• Stands it not by the door—
• Love's Hour—till she and I shall meet;
• With bodiless form and unapparent feet
• That cast no shadow yet before,
• Though round its head the dawn begins to pour
• The breath that makes day sweet?

• Its eyes invisible
• 170 Watch till the dial's thin-thrown shade
• Be born,—yea, till the journeying line be laid
• Upon the point that wakes the spell,
• And there in lovelier light than tongue can tell
• Its presence stand array'd.

• Its soul remembers yet
• Those sunlit hours that passed it by;
• And still it hears the night's disconsolate cry,
• And feels the branches wringing wet
• Cast on its brow, that may not once forget,
• 180 Dumb tears from the blind sky.

• But oh! when now her foot
• Draws near, for whose sake night and day
• Were long in weary longing sighed away,—
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• The Hour of Love, no longer mute,
• Shall sing beside the door, and Love's own lute
• Thrill to the passionate lay.

• Thou know'st, for Love has told
• Within thine ear, O stream, how soon
• That song shall lift its sweet appointed tune.
• 190 O tell me, for my lips are cold,
• And in my veins the blood is waxing old
• Even while I beg the boon.

• So, in that hour of sighs
• Assuaged, shall we beside this stone
• Yield thanks for grace; while in thy mirror shown
• The twofold image softly lies,
• Until we kiss, and each in other's eyes
• Is imaged all alone.

• Still silent? Can no art
• 200 Of Love's then move thy pity? Nay,
• To thee let nothing come that owns his sway:
• Let happy lovers have no part
• With thee; nor even so sad and poor a heart
• As thou hast spurned to-day.

• To-day? Lo! night is here.
• The glen grows heavy with some veil
• Risen from the earth or fall'n to make earth pale;
• And all stands to eye and ear,
• Until the night-wind shake the shade like fear
• 210 And every covert quail.

• Ah! by another wave
• On other airs the hour must come
• Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home.
• Between the lips of the low cave
• Against that night the lapping waters lave,
• And the dark lips are dumb.

• But there Love's self doth stand,
• And with Life's weary wings far-flown,
• And with Death's eyes that make the water moan,
• 220 Gathers the water in his hand:
• And they that drink know nought of sky or land
• But only love alone.

• O soul-sequestered face
• Far off,—O were that night but now!
• So even beside that stream even I and thou
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• Through thirsting lips should draw Love's grace,
• And in the zone of that supreme embrace
• Bind aching breast and brow.

• O water whispering
• 230 Still through the dark into mine ears,—
• As with mine eyes, is it not now with hers?—
• Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring,
• Wan water, wandering water weltering,
• This hidden tide of tears.

   

• Warmed by her hand and shadowed by her hair
• As close she leaned and poured her heart through thee,
• Whereof the articulate throbs accompany
• The smooth black stream that makes thy whiteness fair,—
• Sweet fluttering sheet, even of her breath aware,—
• Oh let thy silent song disclose to me
• That soul wherewith her lips and eyes agree
• Like married music in Love's answering air.

• Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought,
• 10 Her bosom to the writing closelier press'd,
• And her breast's secrets peered into her breast;
• When, through eyes raised an instant, her soul sought
• My soul, and from the sudden confluence caught
• The words that made her love the loveliest.

   

• So now the changed year's turning wheel returns:
• And as a girl sails balanced in the wind,
• And now before and now again behind
• Stoops as it swoops, with cheek that laughs and burns,—
• So Spring comes merry towards me now, but earns
• No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd
• With the dead boughs that winter still must bind,
• And whom to-day the Spring no more concerns.

• Behold, this crocus is a withering flame;
• 10 This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom's part
• To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art.
• Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them,
• Nor gaze till on the year's last lily-stem
• The white cup shrivels round the golden heart.

   

• Dusk-haired and gold-robed o'er the golden wine
• She stoops, wherein, distilled of death and shame,
• Sink the black drops; while, lit with fragrant flame,
• Round her spread board the golden sunflowers shine.
• Doth Helios here with Hecatè combine
• (O Circe, thou their votaress!) to proclaim
• For these thy guests all rapture in Love's name,
• Till pitiless Night give Day the countersign?

• Lords of their hour, they come. And by her knee
• 10 Those cowering beasts, their equals heretofore,
• Wait; who with them in new equality
• To-night shall echo back the unchanging roar
• Which sounds for ever from the tide-strown shore
• Where the dishevelled seaweed hates the sea.

   

• Is it the moved air or the moving sound
• That is Life's self and draws my life from me,
• And by instinct ineffable decree
• Holds my breath quailing on the bitter bound?
• Nay, is it Life or Death, thus thunder-crown'd,
• That 'mid the tide of all emergency
• Now notes my separate wave, and to what sea
• Its difficult eddies labour in the ground?

• Oh! what is this that knows the road I came,
• 10The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame,
• The lifted shifted steeps and all the way?—
• That draws round me at last this wind-warm space,
• And in regenerate rapture turns my face
• Upon the devious coverts of dismay?