Then a swift music will begin, And as the brazen doors shut slow, There will be hurrying to and fro, And lights and calls and silver din, While through the star-freaked swirl of air The god's sweet cruel eyes will stare.
To-night her lids shall lift again, slow, soft, with vague desire, And lay about my breast and brain their hush of spirit fire, And I shall take the sweet of pain as the laborer his hire.
And though no word shall e'er be said to ease the ghostly sting, And though our hearts, unhoused, unfed, must still go wandering, My sign is set upon her head while stars do meet and sing.
Not such a sign as women wear who make their foreheads tame With life's long tolerance, and bear love's sweetest, humblest name, Nor such as passion eateth bare with its crown of tears and flame.
Nor such a sign as happy friend sets on his friend's dear brow When meadow-pipings break and blend to a key of autumn woe, And the woodland says playtime 's at end, best unclasp hands and go.
But where she strays, through blight or blooth, one fadeless flower she wears, A little gift God gave my youth,--whose petals dim were fears, Awes, adorations, songs of ruth, hesitancies, and tears.
O heart of mine, with all thy powers of white beatitude, What are the dearest of God's dowers to the children of his blood? How blow the shy, shy wilding flowers in the hollows of his wood?
This string upon my harp was best beloved: I thought I knew its secrets through and through; Till an old man, whose young eyes lightened blue 'Neath his white hair, bent over me and moved His fingers up and down, and broke the wire To such a laddered music, rung on rung, As from the patriarch's pillow skyward sprung Crowded with wide-flung wings and feet of fire.
O vibrant heart! so metely tuned and strung That any untaught hand can draw from thee One clear gold note that makes the tired years young-- What of the time when Love had whispered me Where slept thy nodes, and my hand pausefully Gave to the dim harmonics voice and tongue?
The faint stars wake and wonder, Fade and find heart anew; Above us and far under Sphereth the watchful blue.
Silent she sits, outbending, A wild pathetic grace, A beauty strange, heart-rending, Upon her hair and face.