XXII
So sang she, so wept she,
Through a dream-night’s day;
And with her magic singing kept she—
Mystical in music—
That garden of enchanting
In visionary May;
Swayless for my spirit’s haunting,
Thrice-threefold walled with emerald from our mortal mornings grey.
And as a necromancer
Raises from the rose-ash
The ghost of the rose;
My heart so made answer
To her voice’s silver plash,—
Stirred in reddening flash,
And from out its mortal ruins the purpureal phantom blows.
XXIV
Her tears made dulcet fretting,
Her voice had no word,
More than thunder or the bird.
Yet, unforgetting,
The ravished soul her meanings knew. Mine ears heard not, and I heard.
XXV
When she shall unwind
All those wiles she wound about me,
Tears shall break from out me,
That I cannot find
Music in the holy poets to my wistful want, I doubt me!
CONTEMPLATION
This morning saw I, fled the shower,
The earth reclining in a lull of power:
The heavens, pursuing not their path,
Lay stretched out naked after bath,
Or so it seemed; field, water, tree, were still,
Nor was there any purpose on the calm-browed hill.