Flower Pieces and other poems By William Allingham: With two designs by Dante Gabriel Rossetti |
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ÆOLIAN HARP.
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 | Flower Pieces and other poems |  |
76
ÆOLIAN HARP.
[Hear you now a throbbing wind that calls]
Hear you now a throbbing wind that calls
Over ridge of cloud and purple flake?
Sad the sunset's ruin'd palace-walls,
Dim the line of mist along the lake,—
Even as the mist of Memory.
O the summer-nights that used to be!
Over ridge of cloud and purple flake?
Sad the sunset's ruin'd palace-walls,
Dim the line of mist along the lake,—
Even as the mist of Memory.
O the summer-nights that used to be!
An evening rises from the dead
Of long-ago (ah me, how long!)
Like a story, like a song,
Told, and sung, and pass'd away.
Love was there, that since hath fled,
Hope, whose locks are turn'd to gray,
Friendship, with a tongue of truth
And a beating heart of youth,
Wingèd Joy, too, just alighted,
Ever-welcome, uninvited;
Love and Friendship, Hope and Joy,
With arms about each other twined,
Merrily watching a crescent moon,
Slung to its gold nail of a star,
Over the fading crimson bar,
Like a hunter's horn: the happy wind
Breathed to itself some twilight tune,
And bliss had no alloy.
Of long-ago (ah me, how long!)
Like a story, like a song,
Told, and sung, and pass'd away.
Love was there, that since hath fled,
Hope, whose locks are turn'd to gray,
Friendship, with a tongue of truth
And a beating heart of youth,
Wingèd Joy, too, just alighted,
Ever-welcome, uninvited;
Love and Friendship, Hope and Joy,
With arms about each other twined,
Merrily watching a crescent moon,
Slung to its gold nail of a star,
Over the fading crimson bar,
Like a hunter's horn: the happy wind
77
And bliss had no alloy.
Against the colours of the west
Trees were standing tall and black,
The voices of the day at rest,
Night rose around, a solemn flood,
With fleets of worlds: and our delightful mood
Rippled in music to the rock and wood;
Music with echoes, never to come back.
The touch upon my hand is this alone—
A heavy tear-drop of my own.
Trees were standing tall and black,
The voices of the day at rest,
Night rose around, a solemn flood,
With fleets of worlds: and our delightful mood
Rippled in music to the rock and wood;
Music with echoes, never to come back.
The touch upon my hand is this alone—
A heavy tear-drop of my own.
Listen to the breeze: ‘O loitering Time!—
Unresting Time!—O viewless rush of Time!’
Thus it calls and swells and falls,
From Sunset's wasted palace-walls,
And ghostly mists that climb.
Unresting Time!—O viewless rush of Time!’
Thus it calls and swells and falls,
From Sunset's wasted palace-walls,
And ghostly mists that climb.
| Flower Pieces and other poems | |