XXII
“Flutes and mandolins—a Spanish melody—nothing more. Yet it seemed as if the night were speaking, or out of the night some passional life long since melted into Nature’s mystery.”
Lafcadio Hearn
Last night—shall I forget it ere I die?
I lay within a chamber curtained in
With red rich hangings such as Arabs spin,
Sombre of depth, tragic, where shadows lie.
You reached your lute and played a song keyed high
Upon soft undercurrents, trilled and thin,
Weaving an old love-song of Spain’s therein,
Sprayed fine as waters are when winds are nigh.
And then you played no more again that night.
Nor of song’s silver stream did I care more.
I looked into your eyes. There black and bright
An ocean did unroll sans sound, depth, shore—
Across it sped as once of old the dove,
The golden, glittering, galleons of love!