UNDER TWO WINDOWS
I. AUBADE
The dawn is here—and the long night through I have never seen thy face, Though my feet have worn the patient grass at the gate of thy dwelling-place.
While the white moon sailed till, red in the west, it found the far world-edge, No leaflet stirred of the leaves that climb to garland thy window ledge.
Yet the vine had quivered from root to tip, and opened its flowers again, If only the low moon's light had glanced on a moving casement pane.
Warm was the wind that entered in where the barrier stood ajar, And the curtain shook with its gentle breath, white as young lilies are;
But there came no hand all the slow night through to draw the folds aside, (I longed as the moon and the vine-leaves longed!) or to set the casement wide.
Three times in a low-hung nest there dreamed his fivesweet notes a bird, And thrice my heart leaped up at the sound I thoughtthou hadst surely heard.
But now that thy praise is caroled aloud by a thousand throats awake, Shall I watch from afar and silently, as under the moon, for thy sake?