Dusky summer-eve declineth
Over wood and verdant meadow,
Golden moon in azure heavens,
Wafting fragrance, softly shineth.

By the brook-side chirps the cricket,
Something stirs within the water,
And the wanderer hears a rustling,
Hears a breathing past the thicket.

In the streamlet, white and slender,
All alone the nymph is bathing,
Beautiful her arms and shoulders
Shimmer in the moonbeams' splendor.

LXXXVIII.

Night enfolds these foreign meadows,
Sick heart, weary limbs caressing.
Ah, thy light athwart the shadows,
Moon, is like a quiet blessing!

Gentle moon, thy mild beams banish
Gloomy terrors where they hover.
All my woes dissolve and vanish,
And mine eyes with dew brim over.

LXXXIX.

Death is like the balmy night,
Life is like the sultry day;
It is dark, and I am sleepy.
I am weary of the light.

O'er my couch a tree doth spring
In its boughs a nightingale
Sings of love, of naught but love,
In my dream I hear him sing.

XC.

"Tell me where's your lovely maiden,
Whom you sang of erst so well,
As a flame that through your bosom
Pierced with rare, enchanted spell."

Ah, that flame is long extinguished!
And my heart is cold above.
And this little book the urn is
For the ashes of my love.

SONGS TO SERAPHINE.

SONGS TO SERAPHINE.

I.

In the dreamy wood I wander,
In the wood at even-tide;
And thy slender, graceful figure
Wanders ever by my side.

Is not this thy white veil floating?
Is not that thy gentle face?
Is it but the moonlight breaking
Through the dark fir-branches' space?

Can these tears so softly flowing
Be my very own I hear?
Or indeed, art thou beside me,
Weeping, darling, close anear?

II.

Over all the quiet sea-shore
Shadowing falls the hour of Hesper;
Through the clouds the moon is breaking,
And I hear the billows whisper.

"Can that man who wanders yonder
Be a lover or a dunce?
For he seems so sad and merry,
Sad and merry both at once."

But the laughing moon looks downward,
And she speaks, for she doth know it:
"Yes, he is both fool and lover,
And, to cap it all, a poet!"

III.

Behold! 'tis a foam-white sea-mew
That flutters there on high.
Far over the black night-waters
The moon hangs up in the sky.

The shark and the roach d