Leaping, longing, in my breast:
Let him come that loves me true,
Let him come that I love best,
I will tell him what I mean,
Now the wood-birds tell it too,
Now the woods are green.’
While the woods were bare,
‘Oh I’ she sighed, ‘my heart is grey,
Shrinking, shivering, in my breast:
Love me, hate me, as they may,
None of them do I love best:
Let me be alone with care,
Now the wood-birds hide away,
Now the woods are bare.’
‘Oh the foamy billow’s joy!Oh the rippling in the sun!Oh the round waves, one by one, Swaying, swaying, swaying, To and fro.Oh my pearl and coral cell, And the long weeds playing,While the surges come and go, Come and go!’Boy and nymph were hand in hand:He and she they had much love.‘Oh the green and…
Set me sweet violets along my way,And bid the red rose flower, but not too soon.Ah violet, ah rose, why not the two?Why bloom not all fair flowers the whole year through?Why not the two, young violet, ripe rose?Why dies one sweetness when another blows?
Reddest roses summer ever grew,Whitest roses ever pearled with dew;And their sweetness was beyond delight,Was all love’s delight.Wheresoever in the world I went,Roses were; for in my heart I tookBlow and blossom and bewildering scent;Roses never with the summer spent,Roses always ripening in that nook,Love’s far summer nook.In the world a soddened plot I knowBlackening…
And pour its fullness into life at last.’But when the rain was done,But when dawn sparkled through unclouded air,She was not there.The lark said ‘Let but winter be away,And blossoms come, and light, and I will soar,And lose the earth, and be the voice of day.’But when the snows were o’er,But when spring broke in…
‘Twere the best if we unknewWhile to-morrow dawned and grew;It may bring us time to weep:We were glad to-day.Joy a little while is won,Joy is ending while begun;Then the setting of the sun.Afterwards is long to rue.
And the waste of the world was grey,And night was the best to know,For night was to doze and forget the day,To be warm and forgetting and still,And need not the sun and know not the chill:But oh, for the day that was darkened so!Why gaze on a barren heaven,Void and unchanging heaven,On a barren…
