SONG.
Sing the old song, amid the sounds dispersing
That burden treasured in your hearts too long;
Sing it with voice low breathed, but never name her.
She will not hear you, in her turrets nursing
High thoughts, too high to mate with mortal song—
Bend o'er her, gentle Heaven, but do not claim her!
In twilight caves, and secret lonelinesses,
She shades the bloom of her unearthly days;
And the soft winds alone have power to woo her:
Far off we catch the dark gleam of her tresses;
And wild birds haunt the wood-walks where she strays,
Intelligible music warbling to her.
That Spirit charged to follow and defend her,
He also, doubtless, suffers this love-pain;
And she perhaps is sad, hearing his sighing:
And yet that face is not so sad as tender;
Like some sweet singer's when her sweetest strain
From the heaved heart is gradually dying!
