This only I remember, that I cried:
"O Sappho! ere I leave this paradise,
Sing me one song of those lost books of yours
For which we poets still go sorrowing;
That when I meet my fellows on the earth
I may rejoice them more than many pearls;"
And she, the sweetly smiling, answered me,
As one who dreams, "I have forgotten them."
NOCTURNE: IN PROVENCE.
The blue night, like an angel, came into the room,--
Came through the open window from the silent sky
Down trellised stairs of moonlight into the dear room
As if a whisper breathed of some divine one nigh.
The nightingales, like brooks of song in Paradise,
Gurgled their serene rapture to the silent sky--
Like springs of laughter bubbling up in Paradise,
The serene nightingales along the riverside
Purled low in every tree their star-cool melodies
Of joy--in every tree along the riverside.
Did the vain garments melt in music from your side?
Did you rise from them as a lily flowers i' the air?
--But you were there before me like the Night's own bride--
I dared not call you mine. So still and tall you were,
I never dreamed that you were mine--I never dreamed
I loved you--I forgot I loved you. You were air
And music, and the shadows that you stood in, seemed
Like priests that keep their sombre vigil round a shrine--
Like sombre priests that watch about a glorious shrine.
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