How many lovers
Hath not its lulling
Cradled to slumber
With the ripe flowers, 15
Ere for our pleasure
This golden summer
Walked through the corn-lands
In gracious splendour! 20
How many loved ones
Will it not croon to,
In the long spring-days
Through coming ages,
When all our day-dreams 25
Have been forgotten,
And none remembers
Even thy beauty!
They too shall slumber
In quiet places, 30
And mighty sea-sounds
Call them unheeded.
XCVI
Hark, my lover, it is spring!
On the wind a faint far call
Wakes a pang within my heart,
Unmistakable and keen.
At the harbour mouth a sail 5
Glimmers in the morning sun,
And the ripples at her prow
Whiten into crumbling foam,
As she forges outward bound
For the teeming foreign ports. 10
Through the open window now,
Hear the sailors lift a song!
In the meadow ground the frogs
With their deafening flutes begin,—
The old madness of the world 15
In their golden throats again.