You smile, and half in jest you ask
A song from me. A simple task,
If he who sings had all the youth
And freshness of thy maiden truth,
To give to words the glow and light,
Without which who can sing aright?
But other years than those which make
Thy brow a splendour for thy sake
Are mine, and at their touch I feel
A certain sadness upward steal,
That whispers, only heard by me:
'He must be young who sings to thee.'
You answer: 'It is said or sung
That poets must be always young—
That unto them the years pass by,
And leave no shade on brow or eye—
That youth still keeps its summer day,
And age is ever far away.'
Alas! a sage has said, who dwelt
Where beauty like a sun is felt,
That poets start this life in gladness,
But in the end there cometh madness.
Sad truth; for when we journey on,
The golden mists of fancy gone,
Which, fools of our own dreams, we threw
O'er all that came within our view,
We catch with sadness in our eye,
Dull hills beneath a duller sky,
And miss the light that came and went
Like music o'er an instrument.
Enough! No threnody from me;
No sorrow when I sing to thee.
But what to say or sing? In sooth,
My muse must be thy blooming youth,
And that fair face and cheeks, whereon
Love has his sweetest roses thrown,
And touched with dainty finger-tips
The dewy crimson of thy lips.
And set in light, with half a sigh,
His own sweet language in thine eye—
This must my inspiration be,
Or how else could I sing to thee?
I dream, and dreaming, place thy feet
In woodland paths when spring is sweet,
Where, in the silence scarcely stirred,
The bursting of the leaves is heard,
And like a murmur through the air
The new life throbs, and all is fair.
Or better, on an afternoon
In some rich English lane in June,
With all the hedge on either side
Aglow with roses in their pride;
The winds of summer in thy hair,
As loth to wander otherwhere;
And overhead a sky serene,
Where not a single cloud is seen;
And humming as you trip along
Stray snatches of an English song,
Of lovers talking as they pass
Through meadows thick with springing grass,
Or plighting love-troth at the stile,
And I too see thee all the while,
Deeming thy voice—ah, who would not?—
The fairy echo of the spot.
This, this, were sweeter for your prime,
An English lane in summer-time,
Than this cold city, where the dust
Of streets corrodes and eats like rust;
Where life roars on, and pulses beat
With throbbing blood at fever-heat,
And all the weary waves we see
Of this strange, sad humanity,
Flow and re-flow without a pause,
Like tidal-breaths that ocean draws,
Till weary of such yearning quest,
They moan at midnight into rest.
Ah, wherefore ask a song from me,
As if it could be aught to thee?
For sweeter far than verse is all
Thy young heart's happy madrigal,
Which, sung to thee when all is still
And fancy wanders at her will,
Wafts thee, as light as clouds are blown,
To that fair realm where dreams alone
May enter, and where, low and clear,
Love, with his lips against thine ear,
Whispers those words that, said or sung,
Remould this world, and make it young,
Till fields and woods, and seas and skies
Draw back the light of Paradise,
And in its sunshine thou dost stand,
Full maiden in a maiden's land,
And on thy brow, as horoscope,
The golden aureole of hope.
Ah, wherefore ask a song from me?
He must be young who sings to thee.