s at noon. 'Tis there she sits
Hour after hour, and as a dove
Croons when her breast is ripe for love,
So sings this exile, quiet, sad chants
Of love, yet knows not what she wants;
And singing there in undertone,
Is one day answered by the moan
Of hidden mourner; but no fear
Hath she for sound so true, though near;
Nay, but sings out her elegy,
Which, like an echo, answers he.
Again she sings; he suits her mood,
Nor breaks upon her solitude:
So she, choragus, calls the tune,
And as she leads he follows soon.
As bird with bird vies in the brake,
She sings no note he will not take--
As when she pleads, "Ah, my lost love,
The night is dark thou art not of,"
Quick cometh answering the phrase,
"O love, let all our nights be days!"
This, rapt, with beating heart, she heeds
And follows, "Sweet love, my heart bleeds!
Come, stay the wound thyself didst give";
Then he, "I come to bid thee live."
And so they carol, and her heart
Swells to believe his counterpart,
And strophe striketh clear, which he
Caps with his brave antistrophe;
And as a maiden waxes bold,
And opens what should not be told
When all her auditory she sees
Within her mirror, so to trees
And rocks, and sullen sounding main
She empties all her passioned pain;
And "love, love, love," her burden is,
And "I am starving for thee," his.
Moved, melted, all on fire she stands,
Holding abroad her quivering hands,
Raises her sweet eyes faint with tears
And dares to seek him whom she hears;
And from her parted lips a sigh
Stealeth, as knowing he is nigh
And her fate on her--then she'd shun
That which she seeks; but the thing's done.

Hollow-voiced, dim, spake her a shade,
"O thou that comest, nymph or maid--
If nymph, then maiden, since for aye
Virgin is immortality,
Nor love can change what Death cannot--
Look on me by love new-begot;
Look on me, child new-born, nor start
To see my form who knowest my heart;
For it is thine. O Mother and Wife,
Take then my love--thou gavest it life!"

So spake one close: to whom she lent
The wonder of her eyes' content--
That lucent gray, as if moonlight
Shone through a sapphire in the night--
And saw him faintly imaged, rare
As wisp of cloud on hillside bare,
A filamental