AN ERROR CHANCED[22] (1824)
An error chanced in the moonlight garden
Of a once inviolate love.
Shuddering I came on an outworn deceit,
And with sorrowing look, yet cruel,
Bade I the slender
Enchanting maiden
Leave me and wander far.
Alas! her lofty forehead
Was bowed, for she loved me well;
Yet did she go in silence
Into the dim gray
World outside.
Sick since then,
Wounded and woeful heart!
Never shall it be whole.
Meseems that, spun of the air, a thread of magic
Binds her yet to me, an unrestful bond;
It draws, it draws me faint with love toward her.
Might it yet be some day that on my threshold
I should find her, as erst, in the morning twilight,
Her traveler's bundle beside her,
And her eye true-heartedly looking up to me,
Saying, "See, I've come back,
Back once more from the lonely world!"
* * * * *
A SONG FOR TWO IN THE NIGHT[23] (1825)
She. How soft the night wind strokes the meadow grasses
And, breathing music, through the woodland passes!
Now that the upstart day is dumb,
One hears from the still earth a whispering throng
Of forces animate, with murmured song
Joining the zephyrs' well-attunèd hum.
He. I catch the tone from wondrous voices brimming,
Which sensuous on the warm wind drifts to me,
While, streaked with misty light uncertainly,
The very heavens in the glow are swimming.
She. The air like woven fabric seems to wave,
Then more transparent and more lustrous groweth;
Meantime a muted melody outgoeth
From happy fairies in their purple cave.
To sphere-wrought harmony
Sing they, and busily
The thread upon their silver spindles floweth.
He. Oh lovely night! how effortless and free
O'er samite black-though green by day—thou movest!
And to the whirring music that thou lovest
Thy foot advances imperceptibly.
Thus hour by hour thy step doth measure—
In trancèd self-forgetful pleasure
Thou'rt rapt; creation's soul is rapt with thee!