For me, the solitary dreamer, now shall hold
Voices and faces that I knew not of.
More, henceforth, shall all music mean to me,
And she, through lonely musings, ever seem
As beautiful as are the dead. But you—
You in your hand shall guard the gathered rose,
Shall hold the riven veil, the loosened chord!
So love your hour, bright god, ere it is lost,
A swan that sings its broken life away.
In that brief hour, ’tis writ, you shall hear breathe
Songs blown from some enchanted island home,
Then mourn for evermore life’s silent throats,—
Aye, seek and find the altar when its fires
Are ashes, and the worship vain regret!
A mystic law more strong than all delight
Or pain shall each delicious rapture chill,
Exacting sternly for each ecstasy;
And when her voice enwraps you and in arms
Luxurious your softest languor comes,
Faintly torn wings shall flutter for the sun,
Madly old dreams shall struggle toward the light,
And, drugged with opiate passion, you shall know
Dark days and shadowy moods when she may seem
To some dusk underworld enchaining you.
Yet I shall know her as she was of old,
Fashioned of moonlight and Aegean foam;
Some visionary gleam, some glory strange
Shall day by day engolden her lost face.
The slow attrition of the years shall wear
7
