 | The coming of love |  |
39
IV
PERCY READING THE LETTER AT RINGTON MANOR
The trees awake: I hear the branches creak!
And ivy-leaves are tapping at the pane:
Dawn draws across the grey a saffron streak,
To let me read at sunrise once again
Beautiful Rhona's letter, which has lain,
Balming the pillow underneath my cheek,
While in the dark her writing seemed to speak:
Her great eyes lit my brain.
And ivy-leaves are tapping at the pane:
Dawn draws across the grey a saffron streak,
To let me read at sunrise once again
Beautiful Rhona's letter, which has lain,
Balming the pillow underneath my cheek,
While in the dark her writing seemed to speak:
Her great eyes lit my brain.
I felt the paper—felt her thumb's device
That stamped the wax; I seemed to feel the fingers
Which wrote these misspelt words of rarer price
Than songs of bards I worshipped as the bringers
Of light from shores where spheral music lingers,
Till came this girl, whose music could entice
My soul to that diviner Paradise
Where lovers are the singers—
That stamped the wax; I seemed to feel the fingers
Which wrote these misspelt words of rarer price
Than songs of bards I worshipped as the bringers
40
Till came this girl, whose music could entice
My soul to that diviner Paradise
Where lovers are the singers—
That Paradise which Rhona can transfer
From Eden to the tents of Gypsy Dell,
Where Love is still his own orthographer
As when on scriptured leaves of asphodel
He taught his earliest pupil, Eve, to spell—
Where Love speaks out what makes his bosom stir
Frankly as yonder woodland chorister,
Whose first notes rise and swell.
From Eden to the tents of Gypsy Dell,
Where Love is still his own orthographer
As when on scriptured leaves of asphodel
He taught his earliest pupil, Eve, to spell—
Where Love speaks out what makes his bosom stir
Frankly as yonder woodland chorister,
Whose first notes rise and swell.
| The coming of love | |