Through windless ways of the night my spirit followed after; Cold and remote were they, and there, possessed By a strange unworldly rest, Awaiting thy still voice heard only starry laughter.
The pillared halls of sleep echoed my ghostly tread. Yet when their secret chambers I essayed My spirit sank, dismayed, Waking in fear to find the new-born vision fled.
Once indeed--but then my spirit bloomed in leafy rapture-- I loved; and once I looked death in the eyes: So, suddenly made wise, Spoke of such beauty as I may never recapture....
Whither, O, divine mistress, must I then follow thee? Is it only in love ... say, is it only in death That the spirit blossometh, And words that may match my vision shall come to me?
When the evening came my love said to me: Let us go into the garden now that the sky is cool; The garden of black hellebore and rosemary, Where wild woodruff spills in a milky pool.
Low we passed in the twilight, for the wavering heat Of day had waned; and round that shaded plot Of secret beauty the thickets clustered sweet: Here is heaven, our hearts whispered, but our lips spake not.
Between that old garden and seas of lazy foam Gloomy and beautiful alleys of trees arise With spire of cypress and dreamy beechen dome, So dark that our enchanted sight knew nothing but the skies:
Veiled with a soft air, drench'd in the roses' musk Or the dusky, dark carnation's breath of clove: No stars burned in their deeps, but through the dusk I saw my love's eyes, and they were brimmed with love.
No star their secret ravished, no wasting moon Mocked the sad transience of those eternal hours: Only the soft, unseeing heaven of June, The ghosts of great trees, and the sleeping flowers.
For doves that crooned in the leafy noonday now Were silent; the night-jar sought his secret covers, Nor even a mild sea-whisper moved a creaking bough-- Was ever a silence deeper made for lovers?
Was ever a moment meeter made for love? Beautiful are your closed lips beneath my kiss; And all your yielding sweetness beautiful-- Oh, never in all the world was such a night as this!
The robin on my lawn He was the first to tell How, in the frozen dawn, This miracle befell, Waking the meadows white With hoar, the iron road Agleam with splintered light, And ice where water flowed: Till, when the low sun drank Those milky mists that cloak Hanger and hollied bank, The winter world awoke To hear the feeble bleat Of lambs on downland farms: A blackbird whistled sweet; Old beeches moved their arms Into a mellow haze Aerial, newly-born: And I, alone, agaze, Stood waiting for the thorn To break in blossom white, Or burst in a green flame.... So, in a single night, Fair February came, Bidding my lips to sing Or whisper their surprise, With all the joy of spring And morning in her eyes.