Only the song the sea sings as she laves That sleep-bound shore with sad caressing waves, The while the dead sleep sweeter in their graves.
'Tis oh! so still they sleep within each tomb, Cool in long shadows of the cypress gloom, Breathing in death the moon-flower's rank perfume.
They know not when slow barges on the mere Enter the portals of that place austere-- Enter and so forever disappear!
And in this island of a silent sea, Whose marge e'er wistful waves lap listlessly, Is rest,--is peace for all eternity.
Over the hills where the pine-trees grow, With a laugh to answer the wind at play. Why do I laugh? I do not know, But you and I once passed this way.
Down in the hollow now white with snow My heart is singing a song today. Why do I sing? I do not know, But you and I were here in May.
When April spreads her mantle green Across the pasture-lands of snow, And Spring's first scarlet breasts are seen Where treetops rustle to and fro; Then come fair fragrant dreams as though Our lightest fancy to entrance And paint us what we fain would know Adown the lanes of Old Romance.
Anon, we see the golden sheen Of burnished mail the sunbeams throw, Flashing the poplars tall between, As knights ride by to meet the foe; Or, mayhap, shepherd lads who blow On slender pipes, a pastoral dance-- Ah, strong were they in weal and woe Adown the lanes of Old Romance!
But now the vast years intervene, The fountain long has ceased its flow, And silence rules the lone demesne That once held such a goodly show; Yet time, at least, does this bestow Nor leave the best to fleeting chance-- They live again in fancy's glow Adown the lanes of Old Romance.
Sweet, still for us some blossoms grow From out that dim and dear expanse-- Come, take my hand and we shall go Adown the lanes of Old Romance!
I heard a voice from the far away Softly say this to me-- "You will find the heart of the world some day And the why of the things that be; You will see the grief of the yea and nay And the price of frailty.
"And upon your lute you will weave a theme Which the world will harken and know; For every note of the song will teem With a great soul's overflow-- You will speak the meaning within a dream And the pain in the afterglow.