Like the bells in the garden, the water speaks of peace and sleep.
Farther up
The oak groves end abrupt,
But down that narrow valley
Like a darkened alley,
The water falls and calls
And seeps and leaps
And speaks by waterfalls;
Till the wanderer believes
There are voices in the leaves,
Whispering like thirsty lips,
Calling like muffled bells from misty ships,
Gurgling like pigeons from the eaves—
It is a demon din
Of subterranean voices old and thin,
An elfin carillon the water rings
As it sweeps on.
Halfway in that night
Of oak twilight,
Where the stream dashes down a verge,
The sound of ocean and of river merge.
And it is strange to see
The leaves whirl eerily,
When like an icy kiss,
Comes the long withering hiss
Of the tormented sea.
The world, knowing only itself, thinks the king is mad or bewitched to leave it and the love of the queen for solitude.
The king is melancholy mad, I guess,
To dwell in such a dim and rustling place,
Perhaps he has a sin beyond redress,
Perhaps he sees him visions of a face.
Some say it is a bell
Has lured him to the garden by a spell,
And that the spell is holy;
Holy or not, it's melancholy!
For when the queen rides to him from the town,
With two maids posting, one on either side,
Her face is veiled with black when she rides down—
Like mourners by a hearse her two maids ride—
Her face is veiled with black,
The reins hang slack;
Some say she weeps,
But who can tell?
Why should the queen weep when she hears a bell?
The queen, desiring the love of her lord above all things, calls him from his garden, but is mocked by the voice of the solitude.
She stops by the gate blind-walled;
Mary! What called?
Did something die?
What answered back?
Did the queen shriek behind her veil of black?
Something said, "O," "O," "O"
With the voice of the queen's own woe!
Was it demon or echo?
It had an "O"-shaped mouth
And a voice like the wind in the south.
It mocked her like a child,
Each time less loud
And much more mild.
The unchanging attitude of nature makes the king fall in love with the earth.
The king, I guess, has lost his wits;
It must be so!
All day he sits
Where mast-straight poplars grow,
Four here, four there, foursquare,
Like columns in a row,
Still as the shadow on a mountain,
And in the middle is a fountain,
Held by two marble boys,
Whence the water falls with a sleepy noise.
It is a madman's choice
To listen to that fountain's voice.
It must be so!
In his garden he finds a peace like death in life.
For never comes to that enchanted place
A sound but of the water, sea, and bells;
The shadows lie like tattered lace.
One mood is fixed there and forever,
Like a look on a dead man's face,
Like a week of summer weather,
I would that I might lay my head on such a bed,
Where dreams make spells—
So must the king think when he hears the bells.