What is it now that I shall seek Where woods dip downward, in the hills?-- A mossy nook, a ferny creek, And May among the daffodils.
Or in the valley's vistaed glow, Past rocks of terraced trumpet vines, Shall I behold her coming slow, Sweet May, among the columbines?
With redbud cheeks and bluet eyes, Big eyes, the homes of happiness, To meet me with the old surprise, Her wild-rose hair all bonnetless.
Who waits for me, where, note for note, The birds make glad the forest trees?-- A dogwood blossom at her throat, My May among th' anemones.
As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms, And dews caress the moon's pale beams, My soul shall drink her lips' perfumes, And know the magic of her dreams.
O Maytime woods! O Maytime lanes and hours! And stars, that knew how often there at night Beside the path, where woodbine odors blew Between the drowsy eyelids of the dusk,-- When, like a great, white, pearly moth, the moon Hung silvering long windows of your room,-- I stood among the shrubs! The dark house slept. I watched and waited for--I know not what!-- Some tremor of your gown: a velvet leaf's Unfolding to caresses of the Spring: The rustle of your footsteps: or the dew Syllabling avowal on a tulip's lips Of odorous scarlet: or the whispered word Of something lovelier than new leaf or rose-- The word young lips half murmur in a dream:
Serene with sleep, light visions weigh her eyes: And underneath her window blooms a quince. The night is a sultana who doth rise In slippered caution, to admit a prince, Love, who her eunuchs and her lord defies.
Are these her dreams? or is it that the breeze Pelts me with petals of the quince, and lifts The Balm-o'-Gilead buds? and seems to squeeze Aroma on aroma through sweet rifts Of Eden, dripping through the rainy trees.
Along the path the buckeye trees begin To heap their hills of blossoms.--Oh, that they Were Romeo ladders, whereby I might win Her chamber's sanctity!--where dreams must pray About her soul!--That I might enter in!--
A dream,--and see the balsam scent erase Its dim intrusion; and the starry night Conclude majestic pomp; the virgin grace Of every bud abashed before the white, Pure passion-flower of her sleeping face.
Among the white haw-blossoms, where the creek Droned under drifts of dogwood and of haw, The redbird, like a crimson blossom blown Against the snow-white bosom of the Spring, The chaste confusion of her lawny breast, Sang on, prophetic of serener days, As confident as June's completer hours. And I stood listening like a hind, who hears A wood nymph breathing in a forest flute Among the beech-boles of myth-haunted ways: And when it ceased, the memory of the air Blew like a syrinx in my brain: I made A lyric of the notes that men might know: