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367

UNDER THE ROSE

He told a story to her,
A story old yet new—
And was it of the Faery Folk
That dance along the dew?
The night was hung with silence
As a room is hung with cloth,
And soundless, through the rose-sweet hush,
Swooned dim the down-white moth.
Along the east a shimmer,
A tenuous breath of flame,
From which, as from a bath of light,
Nymph-like, the girl-moon came.
And pendent in the purple
Of heaven, like fireflies,
Bubbles of gold the great stars blew
From windows of the skies.
368

He told a story to her,
A story full of dreams—
And was it of the elfin things
That haunt the thin moonbeams?
Upon the hill a thorn-tree,
Crookéd and gnarled and gray,
Against the moon seemed some crutched hag
Dragging a child away.
And in the vale a runnel,
That dripped from shelf to shelf,
Seemed in the night, a woodland witch
Who muttered to herself.
Along the land a zephyr,
Whose breath was wild perfume,
That seemed a sorceress who wove
Sweet spells of beam and bloom.
He told a story to her,
A story young yet old—
And was it of the mystic things
Men's eyes shall ne'er behold?
They heard the dew drip faintly
From out the green-cupped leaf;
369

They heard the petals of the rose
Unfolding from their sheaf.
They saw the wind light-footing
The waters into sheen;
They saw the starlight kiss to sleep
The blossoms on the green.
They heard and saw these wonders;
These things they saw and heard;
And other things within the heart
For which there is no word.
He told a story to her,
The story men call Love,
Whose echoes fill the ages past—
And the world ne'er tires of.
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