What land of Silence,

Gleam as when centuries ago they spokeTo what bright gallant of Her Daintiness,Whose slender fingers, long since dust and dead,For love or courtesy embroideredThe cherry-coloured velvet of this cloak.Ah! cunning flowers of silk and silver thread,That mock mortality? the broidering dame,The page they decked, the kings and courts are dead:Gone the age beautiful; Lorenzo’s name,The…

The admirable image that my love has wroughtOut of her swan’s neck and her dark, abundant hair:The jealous gods who brook no worship save their own,Turned my live idol marble and her heart to stone.

And we have reaped the crops the gods have sown;Despair and death; deep darkness o’er the land,Broods like an owl; we cannot understandLaughter or tears, for we have only knownSurpassing vanity: vain things aloneHave driven our perverse and aimless band.Let us go hence, somewhither strange and cold,To Hollow Lands where just men and unjustFind end…

And the day is all but done:While yonder up overhead,All too soon,There rises, so cold, the cynic moon.A song of a winter day!The wind of the north doth blow,From a sky that’s chill and gray,On fields where no crops now grow,Fields long shornOf bearded barley and golden corn.A song of an old, old man!His hairs…

There is no sound heard,But afar, the rareTrilled voice of a bird.Is the wood’s dim heart,And the fragrant pine,Incense, and a shrineOf her coming. Apart,I wait for a sign.What the sudden hush said,She will hear, and forsake,Swift, for my sake,Her green, grassy bed:She will hear and awake!She will hearken and glide,From her place of deep…

Behold the weary West!Sleep rounds with equal zestMan’s toil and children’s play,Come hither, child, and rest.My white bird, seek thy nest,Thy drooping head down lay,Behold the weary West!Now eve is manifestAnd homeward lies our way,Behold the weary West!Tired flower! upon my breastI would wear thee alway,Come hither, child, and rest –Behold the weary West!