Part 14

And low and sweet that song of sleep After the song of love is hushed; While all the longing, here, to weep, Is held and crushed.

Then leafy silence, that is musk With breath of the magnolia tree, While dwindles, moth-white, through the dusk Her drapery.

Let me remember how a heart Wrote its romance upon that night!-- God help my soul to read each part Of it aright!

And like a dead leaf shut between A book's dull chapters, stained and dark, That page, with immemorial green, Of life I mark.

II

It is not well for me to hear That song's appealing melody: The pain of loss comes all too near, Through it, to me.

The loss of her whose love looks through The mist death's hand hath hung between-- Within the shadow of the yew Her grave is green.

Ah, dream that vanished long ago! Oh, anguish of remembered tears! And shadow of unlifted woe Athwart the years!

That haunt the sad rooms of my days, As keepsakes of unperished love, Where pale the memory of her face Hangs, framed above.

This olden song of love and sleep, She used to sing, is now a spell That opens doors within the deep Of my heart's hell,

In music making visible One soul-assertive memory, That steals unto my side to tell My loss to me.

AT VESPERS

High up in the organ-story A girl stands, slim and fair; And touched with the casement's glory Gleams out her radiant hair.

The young priest kneels at the altar, Then lifts the Host above; And the psalm intoned from the psalter Is pure with patient love.

A sweet bell chimes; and a censer Swings, gleaming, in the gloom; The candles glimmer and denser Rolls up the pale perfume.

Then high in the organ choir A voice of crystal soars, Of patience and soul's desire, That suffers and adores.

And out of the altar's dimness An answering voice doth swell, Of passion that cries from the grimness And anguish of its own hell.

High up in the organ-story One kneels with a girlish grace; And, touched with the vesper glory, Lifts her madonna face.

One stands at the cloudy altar, A form bowed down and thin; The text of the psalm in the psalter He chants is sorrow and sin.

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+------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber notes: | | | | P. 61. Stanza 'X' should be 'IX', changed to 'IX'. | | P. 178. Added end quotation and the end of the stanza. | | P. 274. Added opening quote to "My heart is full of lightness!". | | Fixed various punctuation. | +------------------------------------------------------------------+