Sound o’ May winds in the blossoming trees,
Oh, not so sweet as her laugh that rings;
Song o’ wild birds on the morning breeze,
Birds and brooks and murmur o’ bees,
Sweeter her voice when she laughs or sings.
The rose o’ my heart is she; my dawn!
My star o’ the east, my moon above!
My soul takes ship for the Avalon
Of her heart of hearts, and shall sail on
Till it anchors safe in its haven of love.
“A BROKEN RAINBOW ON THE SKIES OF MAY”
A broken rainbow on the skies of May,
Touching the dripping roses and low clouds,
And in wet clouds like scattered jewels lost:—
So in the sorrow of her soul the ghost
Of one great love, of iridescent ray,
Spanning the roses gray of memory,
Against the tumult of life’s rushing crowds—
A broken rainbow on the skies of May.
A flashing humming-bird among the flowers,
Deep-colored blooms; its slender tongue and bill
Sucking the calyxed and the honeyed myrrhs,
Till, sick of sweets, to other flow’rs it whirrs:—
Such was his love that won her heart’s full bowers
To yield to him their all, their sweets in showers,
The flower from which he drank his body’s fill—
A flashing humming-bird among the flowers.
A moon, moth-white, that through far mists, like fleece,
Moves amber-girt into a bulk of black,
And, lost to sight, rims all the black with froth:—
A love that swept its moon, like some great moth,
Across the heaven of her soul’s young peace;
And, smoothly passing, in the clouds did cease
Of time, through which its burning light comes back—
A moon, moth-white, that moves through mists like fleece.
A bolt of living thunder downward hurled,
Momental blazing from the piled-up storm,
That etches out the mountains and the ocean,
The towering rocks, then blots the sight’s commotion:—
Love, love that swiftly coming bared the world,
The deeps of life, round which fate’s clouds are curled,
And, ceasing, left all night and black alarm—
A bolt of living thunder downward hurled.