Carol and Cadence :: :: University of Virginia Library

Over the glimmering plain,
Lowly and full of unfathomable mystery
As the faint far surge of the summer sea,
Wayward and soft
As the wave-song's whispering wane,
Murmur, o voice of the Western Wind, to me!
Now that on field and croft,
River and house and tree,
Creeping as a tide, the flooding shadows fill
Earth's sun-awearied ways and from aloft
The darkness, sinking, swallows heath and hill,
The blesséd silence bringing and with it
Balsam of healing for Day's every ill,
Come through the twilight still,
Come, as some cushat, on the limes alit,
All-nightly, murmuring, in the leaves doth sit,
Before my garden door,
And soothe the soul in me
With medicine of mystic melody
And phantasies of fair and long-forgotten lore!

Breath of the bygone days,
Thou, that in hand the key
Hast of the dreamland's and the wishland's ways,
Blow from thy home beyond the Western beams
And bring with thee
All the mild magic of the sunset-haze,

All the fair fancies, all the darling dreams,
As in Thought's treasury,
That dwell, eternal, midst the setting rays!
Speak from the thither shore
Of Time's untracked, innavigable sea
And on my spirit, wounded passing sore,
Mild ministering, pour,
Pour, as an oil, the tale of Memory,
Rehearsing o'er and o'er,
For me, that of the Present's piteous war
And the waste Now am wearied utterly
And sick with seeking for the obscure To-be,
The ditties of the days that are no more!