The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

There twixt the languid leaves
And o'er blown blossom he awhile did go,
Striving to think, but still that eager face
Wild with its love, and grief and hope and fear
Must he behold; and that sweet voice must hear
Sad and heart-piercing: but nigh where he did pass
Neath sweeping lime-boughs lay a bank of grass
And underneath the shadows there was laid
Unwitting of him, a fair Lycian maid
Not heeding if in that hot windless tide
The loosened clasp should let the linen glide
From off her shoulder, careless that the crown
Of roses from her head had fallen down;
But lying there faint words as of a song
She murmured, and her fingers moved among
The strings of a small harp that lightly lay
Upon her breast, till as one thrusts away
A listless mood she raised herself at last
And pensive music on the hot air cast:

A sweet garden by the sea
Did my true love give to me,
The All-father's paradise
Was not wrought in fairer wise;
Ah how lone, how lone it is.

There the birds sing songs for me
And the murmur of the sea
Do I hear day-long, night-long,
Nothing there may do me wrong;
Ah how lone, how lone it is.

There 'twixt blossomed trees and sea
He let build a house for me
Therein is there wealth of gold
Tales on walls and floor are told;
Ah how lone, how lone it is.

Many a slave he gat for me
On that beach along the sea,
From Mysian land and Argive land
Did the captive women stand;
Ah how lone, how lone it is.

Twixt lily-bed and white-crowned sea
Tales of love folk tell to me;
Songs they sing of happy dreams,
But the o'erword ever seems,
Ah how lone, how lone it is.

Sometimes do folk say to me
When the murmur of the sea
At dead ebb is far away,
“Forget him, he died yesterday.”
Ah how lone, how lone it is.

Or when west winds make the sea
Mad and loud, they say to me,
“Weeping makes thine eyes less fair,
Tomorrow morn shall he be here,”
Ah how lone, how lone it is.

xvj

When tomorrow comes to me
I shall not hear the unquiet sea,
When today is yesterday
No more shall I weep and say,
“Ah how lone, how lone it is.”

He stopped the while she sang, she saw him not
As 'neath the moveless boughs in that green spot
She sang, and when the last words of the song were spent
Unto her feet she gat and slowly went
Another way, as one made well nigh sad
Amidst of joyous life...