Listen! the evening bell to help me chimes;
But then tolls in
A heavy tale of day linked on to day,
CHORUS (speaking for the GARDENER).
And hope stretched out from dusk to dusk.
But now, a watchman of the hours, I beat
The longed-for stroke.
GARDENER.
I was old, I shunned the daylight,
I was gaunt as an aged crane;
And upon all that misery
Suddenly a sorrow was heaped,
The new sorrow of love.
The days had left their marks,
Coming and coming, like waves that beat on a sandy shore ...
CHORUS.
Oh, with a thunder of white waves
The echo of the drum shall roll.
GARDENER.
The after-world draws near me,
Yet even now I wake not
From this autumn of love that closes
In sadness the sequence of my years.
CHORUS.