University of Virginia Library

previous section Bird-Notes
next section
43

XXI. The Language of Love.

You speak to me, my gentle one,
In the tongue of woods and birds,
Winds, waves, and clouds, and moon and sun,—
Melodious mystic words.
Vague utterances of the spheres,
Hints of the gliding streams,
A language holier than tears
And lovelier than dreams.
I seem to hear the murmuring leaves
Caressing neath the moon,
The converse sweet the forest weaves
Under the stars in June,
Voices of lovers by mute waves,
And notes of nightingales,
And the long ripple that laps and laves
The sea-shore after gales;
44

And far into the past I see
By vague or vivid gleams,
And my old thoughts come back to me
And my forgotten dreams.
Feelings of sweetness and desire
That visit earliest youth,
Uplooking visions that aspire,
Resolves that reach at truth;
And then my whole rapt soul falls down
In one adoring trance,
To touch the hem of your white gown
Look in your countenance,
To meet your downward-bended eyes
As o'er a child asleep,
And in their light of sweet surprise
To kiss your hand and weep.
previous section Bird-Notes
next section