Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/185

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BIRD RAPTURES.
157
Caught echoes of all music passed away.
Was this indeed to meet?—I mind me yet
In youth we met when hope and love were quick,
  We parted with hope dead, but love alive:
I mind me how we parted then heart sick,
  Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive:—
Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.


BIRD RAPTURES.
THE sunrise wakes the lark to sing,
The moonrise wakes the nightingale.
Come darkness, moonrise, everything
That is so silent, sweet, and pale,
Come, so ye wake the nightingale.

Make haste to mount, thou wistful moon,
Make haste to wake the nightingale:
Let silence set the world in tune
To hearken to that wordless tale
Which warbles from the nightingale.

O herald skylark, stay thy flight
One moment, for a nightingale
Floods us with sorrow and delight.
To-morrow thou shalt hoist the sail;
Leave us to-night the nightingale.