Amid the dusk for rain, or dew at most.
But thou in anger didst withhold the green,
And grim of breast forbade the bursting sap,
And dared the darkest sky-line of lone Deeps
For thy lost daughter, and could find her not.
Then came the Arethusan whisper, and release;
The refreshing rains washed down and gushed
And sluiced the juicy grasses once again,
And bird by bird, the Summer was re-born,
And drooping in thine arms I wakened here.
Yet all those twilight days I was content
Though silent as a frozen river crept
The hours entombed, though far I was from thee
And from the Nysian fields of open sun,
The sound of waters, and the throats of song.
But when with happier lips I tell thee all
Thou must, worn Mother, leave me here alone
Where soft as early snow the white hours fall
About my musing eyes, and life seems strange,
And strange the muffled piping of the birds,
And strange the drowsy music of the streams,
The whispering pavilions of the pines;
And more than strange the immersing wash of air
That breathes and sways and breaks through all my being
And lulls away, like seas intangible,
Regrets, and tears, and days of heavy gloom.
O Mother, all these things are told not of
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