The Naiad

Dawn have I known, and noon, And the dear night with all her foam of stars, Here in my hands I hold the hunter's moon Nightlong beneath the moving water-grasses, With wavering globes of pearl and amber bars. And spring is mine, when wake the daffodils, To the wind's bugle wound upon the hills, And low across my roof the swallow passes.

Sad smoke of sacred fires along the lands, The burdened vine, full gourd and goldening ears. The labourer's song among his olive trees.— What care have I for these? Hath Cypris lovelier than these silver hands, These meek immortal eyes untouched of tears?

Night hath no room for laughter, and by day The faint flower dies unripened from the tree. Heavy the lives of men, and heavily The imperial gods go wearying, crowned in care, And I am sick as they Of a dim grief, an undesigned despair.

O, here the oleander leans, and deep Lies the gray shell asleep, The round bee drowses in the river-bud. Here the wild cherry droops her chained fruits, Here wind the ivory grasses, and the roots Of roses, red as blood. And sorrow, sorrow, sings the enchanted flood.

Break, ye sweet banks, and set my fountains free, And I will lead my flocks Of fleece-white waters singing down the rocks, To lose immortal sadness in the sea, Die in dim rains along the welcoming shore, And know, ah, know no more. Eve's loneliest star above the water-meadows, Soft birth of wings among the woven shadows, Where almond and the wild azalea throw, Across my silver roof their crowns of wreathed snow.