O lyrist of the lowly and the true,

      The song I sought for you

      Still bides unsung. What hope for me to find,

      Lost in the dædal mind,

      The living utterance with lovely tongue,

      To sing,—as once he sung,

      Rare Ariosto, of Knight-Errantry,—

      How you in Poesy,

      Song’s Paladin, Knight of the Dream and Day,

      The shield of magic sway!

      Of that Atlantes’ power, sweet and terse,

      The skyey-builded verse!

      The shield that dazzles, brilliant with surprise,

      Our unanointed eyes.—

      Oh, could I write as it were worthy you,

      Each word, a spark of dew,—

      As once Ferdusi wrote in Persia,—

      Would string each rosy spray

      Of each unfolding flower of my song;

      And Iran’s bulbul tongue

      Would sob its heart out o’er the fountain’s slab

      In gardens of Afrasiab.

      The mottled moth at eventide

      Beats glimmering wings against the pane;

      The slow, sweet lily opens wide,

      White in the dusk like some dim stain;

      The garden dreams on every side

      And breathes faint scents of rain:

      Among the flowering stocks they stand;

      A crimson rose is in her hand.

      Herein the dearness of her is;

      The thirty perfect days of June

      Made one, in maiden loveliness

      Were not more sweet to clasp and kiss,

      With love not more in tune.

      Ah me! I think she is too true,

      Too spiritual for life’s rough way:

      So say her eyes,—her soul looks through,—

      Two bluet blossoms, watchet-blue,

      Are not more pure than they.

      So kind, so beautiful is she,

      So soft and white, so fond and fair,

      Sometimes my heart fears she may be

      Not long for Earth, and secretly

      Sweet sister to the air.

      The whippoorwills are calling where

      The golden west is graying;

      “’Tis time,” they say, “to meet him there—

      Why are you still delaying?

      “He waits you where the old beech throws

      Its gnarly shadow over

      Wood violet and the bramble rose,

      Frail lady-fern and clover.

      “Where elder and the sumac peep

      Above your garden’s paling,

      Whereon, at noon, the lizards sleep,

      Like lichen on the railing.

      “Come! ere the early rising moon’s

      Gold floods the violet valleys;

      Where mists, like phantom picaroons

      Anchor their stealthy galleys.

      “Come! while the deepening amethyst

      Of dusk above is falling—

      ’Tis time to tryst! ’tis time to tryst!”

      The whippoorwills are calling.

      They call you to these twilight ways

      With dewy odor dripping—

      Ah, girlhood, through the rosy haze

      Come like a moonbeam slipping.

      There is a fading inward of the day,

      And all the pansy sunset clasps one star;

      The twilight acres, eastward, glimmer gray,

      While all the world to westward smoulders far.

      Now to your glass will you pass for the last time?

      Pass! humming some ballad, I know.

      Here where I wait it is late and is past time—

      Late! and the moments are slow, are slow.

      There is a drawing downward of the night;

      The bridegroom Heaven bends down to kiss the moon:

      Above, the heights hang silver in her light;

      Below, the vales stretch purple, deep with June.

      There in the dew is it you hiding lawny?

      You? or a moth in the vines?—

      You!—by your hand! where the band twinkles tawny!

      You!—by your ring, like a glow-worm that shines!

      You’d given up hope?

      Believe me!

      Why! is your love so poor?

      No. Yet you might deceive me!

      As many a girl before.—

      Ah, dear, you will forgive me?

      Say no more, sweet, say no more!

      Love trusts; and that’s enough, my dear.

      Trust wins through love; whereof, my dear,

      Love holds through trust: and love, my dear,

      Is—all my life and lore.

      Come, pay me or I’ll scold you.—

      Give me the kiss you owe.—

      You run when I would hold you?

      No! no! I say! now, no!—

      How often have I told you,

      You must not use me so?

      More sweet the dusk for this is,

      For