O lyrist of the lowly and the true,

      The song I sought for you

      Hides yet unsung. What hope for me to find,

      Lost in the dædal mind,

      The living utterance with lovely tongue!

      To say, as erst was sung

      By Ariosto of Knight-errantry, —

      Through lands of Poesy,

      Song's Paladin, knight of the dream and day,

      The wizard shield you sway

      Of that Atlantes power, sweet and terse,

      The skyey-builded verse:

      The shield that dazzles, brilliant with surprise,

      Our unanointed eyes. —

      Oh, had I written as 't were worthy you,

      Each line, a spark of dew, —

      As once Ferdusi shone in Persia, —

      Had strung each rosy spray

      Of the unfolding flower of each song;

      And Iran's bulbul tongue

      Had sobbed its heart out o'er the fountain's slab

      In gardens of Afrasiab.

      Herein the dearness of her is:

      The thirty perfect days of June

      Made one, in beauty and in bliss

      Were not more white to have to kiss,

      To love not more in tune.

      And oft I think she is too true,

      Too innocent for our day;

      For in her eyes her soul looks new —

      Two crowfoot-blossoms watchet-blue

      Are not more soft than they.

      So good, so kind is she to me,

      In darling ways and happy words,

      Sometimes my heart fears she may be

      Too much with God and secretly

      Sweet sister to the birds.

      The owls are quavering, two, now three,

      And all the green is graying;

      The owls our trysting dials be —

      There is no time for staying.

      I wait you where this buckeye throws

      Its tumbled shadow over

      Wood-violet and the bramble-rose,

      Long lady-fern and clover.

      Spice-seeded sassafras weighs deep

      Rough rail and broken paling,

      Where all day long the lizards sleep

      Like lichen on the railing.

      Behind you you will feel the moon's

      Gold stealing like young laughter;

      And mists – gray ghosts of picaroons —

      Its phantom treasure after.

      And here together, youth and youth,

      Love will be doubly able;

      Each be to each as true as truth,

      And dear as fairy fable.

      The owls are calling and the maize

      With fallen dew is dripping —

      Ah, girlhood, through the dewy haze

      Come like a moonbeam slipping.

      There is a fading inward of the day,

      And all the pansy sunset hugs one star;

      To eastward dwindling all the land is gray,

      While barley meadows westward smoulder far.

      Now to your glass will you pass

      For the last time?

      Pass,

      Humming that ballad we know? —

      Here while I wait it is late

      And is past time —

      Late,

      And love's hours they go, they go.

      There is a drawing downward of the night;

      The wedded Heaven wends married to the Moon;

      Above, the heights hang golden in her light,

      Below, the woods bathe dewy in the June.

      There through the dew is it you

      Coming lawny?

      You,

      Or a moth in the vines?

      You! – at your throat I may note

      Twinkling tawny,

      Note,

      A glow-worm, your brooch that shines.

      How many smiles in the asking? —

      Herein I can not deceive you;

      My "yes" in a "no" was a-masking,

      Nor thought, dear, once to grieve you.

      I hid. The humming-bird happiness here

      Danced up i' the blood … but what are words

      When the speech of two souls all truth affords?

      Affirmative, negative what in love's ear? —

      I wished to say "yes" and somehow said "no";

      The woman within me knew you would know,

      For it held you six times dear.

      So many hopes in a wooing! —

      Therein you could not deceive me;

      The heart was here and the hope pursuing,

      Knew that you loved, believe me. —

      Bunched bells o' the blush pomegranate – to fix

      At your throat; three drops of fire they are;

      And the maiden moon and the maiden star

      Sink silvery over yon meadow ricks.

      Will you look? – till I hug your head back, so —

      For I know it is "yes" though you whisper "no," —

      And my kisses, sweet, are six.

      Could I recall every joy that befell me

      There in the past with its anguish and bliss,

      Here in my heart it has whispered to tell me,

      These were no joys to this.

      Were it not well if our love could forget them,

      Veiling the was with the dawn of the is?

      Dead with the past we should never regret them,

      These were no joys to this.

      When they were gone and the present stood speechful,

      Ardent with word and with look and with kiss,

      What though we know that their eyes are beseechful,

      These