And joy and sorrow intermixed Run tingling through our veins-- These bring more peace and comfort still Than newer, subtler strains.
Oh, quarrion for missel-thrush And rosewood bloom for may! The things the nameless singer saw Are what we see to-day.
The grass is just as green to-day, The distant hill as blue, The birds are just as glad as then, The lovers just as true;
And Alisoun is dead long syne With him that called her fair, But love is just as sweet and fresh When spring is in the air;
And though I must perforce be dumb Who have no skill to sing, I am as deep in love, in love, As is the year in spring!
Out on the plain-land at night There is no sound, not a sigh, And nothing is moving now But scornful stars in the sky:
The night is too great for my heart, It flutters and halts and trips; The terrible mirth of the stars Has slain my song on my lips.
If the gods of Hellas do not tread our shaggy mountains, Stately, white-and-golden, with unfathomable eyes, Yet the lesser spirits haunt our forests and our fountains, Seas and green-brown river-pools no thirsty summer dries.
Never through the tangled scrub we see Diana glisten, Silver-limbed and crescent-crowned and swift to hear and turn, When the chase is hottest and the woods are waked to listen, While her maidens follow running knee-deep in the fern.
Of the great gods only Pan walks hourly here--Pan only, In the warm dark gullies, in the thin clear upland air, On the windy sea-cliffs and the plains apart and lonely, By the tingling silence you may know that he is there.
But the sea-nymphs make our shores shine gay with light and laughter, At the sunset when the waves are mingled milk and fire You may see them very plain, and in the darkness after You may hear them singing with the stars’ great golden choir.
When the earth is mad with song some blue September morning, In the grove of myall trees that rustle green and grey, Through the plumes of trailing leaves hung meet for her adorning, See a dark-browed Dryad peep and swiftly draw away.
In the deep-cut river beds set thick with moss-grown boulders Where the wagtails come to drink and balance lest they fall, You may see the gleaming of a Naiad’s slippery shoulders, And the water sliding cool and quiet over all.