This antique song, new sung in fashion new,
From me, half silent fallen, with love to you,
O singer of unvexed scenes and virgin themes
In strait, quaint, ancient metres, thronged with dreams!
A BALLADE OF PHILOMELA.
From gab of jay and chatter of crake
The dusk wood covered me utterly.
And here the tongue of the thrush was awake.
Flame-floods out of the low bright sky
Lighted the gloom with gold-brown dye,
Before dark; and a manifold chorussing
Arose of thrushes remote and nigh,—
For the tongue of the singer needs must sing.
Midmost a close green covert of brake
A brown bird listening silently
Sat; and I thought—"She grieves for the sake
Of Itylus,—for the stains that lie
In her heritage of sad memory."
But the thrushes were hushed at evening.
Then I waited to hear the brown bird try,—
For the tongue of the singer needs must sing.
And I said—"The thought of the thrushes Will shake
With rapture remembered her heart; and her shy
Tongue of the dear times dead will take
To make her a living song, when sigh
The soft night winds disburthened by.
Hark now!"—for the upraised quivering wing,
The throat exultant, I could descry,—
And the tongue of the singer needs must sing!
L'ENVOI.
But the bird dropped dead with only a cry.
I found its tongue was withered, poor thing!
Then I no whit wondered, for well knew I
That the heart of the singer will break or sing.
A HERALD.
Ere the Spring comes near
O'er the smoking hills,
Stirring a million rills
To laughter low and clear
Till winds are hushed to hear,—
Ere the eaves at noon
Thaw and drip, there flies
A herald thro' the skies
With promise of a boon—
Of birds and blossoms soon.
Subtle though it be,
Yet sweetly sure that word;
E'en such my heart hath heard
(Over life's frosty lea)
Of Immortality.