The plaudits echo through the wide parquet
Where the fair audience upon the grass,
Each knight beside his lady-love, is set,
While overhead the merry winds do pass.
The little river murmurs in its reeds,
And somewhere in the verdurous solitude
The wood-thrush drops a cool contralto note,
An orchestra well-tuned unto their mood.
As runs the play so runs the afternoon;
The curtain and the sun fall side by side;
The epilogue is spoke, the twilight come;
Then homeward through the darkening glades they ride.
THE OLD CITY
Ancient city, down thy street
Minstrels make their music sweet;
Sound of bells is on the air,
Fountains sing in every square,
Where, from dawn to shut of day,
Maidens walk and children play;
And at night, when all are gone,
The waters in the dark sing on,
Till the moonrise and the breeze
Whiten the horse-chestnut trees.
Cool thou liest, leisured, slow,
On the plains of long ago,
All unvexed of fretful trades
Through thy rich and dim arcades,
Overlooking lands below
Terraced to thy green plateau.
Dear old city, it is long
Since I heard thy minstrels' song,
Since I heard thy church-bells deep,
Since I watched thy fountains leap.
Yet, whichever way I turn,
Still I see the sunset burn
At the ending of the street,
Where the chestnut branches meet;
Where, between the gay bazaars,
Maidens walk with eyes like stars,
And the slippered merchants go
On the pavements to and fro.
Upland winds blow through my sleep,
Moonrise glimmers, waters leap,
Till, awaking, thou dost seem
Like a city of a dream,—
Like a city of the air,
Builded high, aloof and fair,—
Such as childhood used to know
On the plains of long ago.
AMETHYSTS
Not the green eaves of our young woods alone
Shelter new violets, by the spring rains kissed;
In the hard quartz, by some old April sown,
Blossoms Time's flower, the steadfast amethyst.