A SUNSET OF WATTEAU

The silk sail fills, the soft winds wake,

Arise and tempt the seas;

Our ocean is the Palace lake,

Our waves the ripples that we make

Among the mirrored trees.

Nay, sweet the shore, and sweet the song,

And dear the languid dream;

The music mingled all day long

With paces of the dancing throng,

And murmur of the stream.

An hour ago, an hour ago,

We rested in the shade;

And now, why should we seek to know

What way the wilful waters flow?

There is no fairer glade.

Nay, pleasure flits, and we must sail,

And seek him everywhere;

Perchance in sunset's golden pale

He listens to the nightingale,

Amid the perfumed air.

Come, he has fled; you are not you,

And I no more am I;

Delight is changeful as the hue

Of heaven, that is no longer blue

In yonder sunset sky.

Nay, if we seek we shall not find,

If we knock none openeth;

Nay, see, the sunset fades behind

The mountains, and the cold night wind

Blows from the house of Death.

My Love dwelt in a Northern land.

A grey tower in a forest green

Was his, and far on either hand

The long wash of the waves was seen,

And leagues on leagues of yellow sand,

The woven forest boughs between!

And through the clear faint Northern night

The sunset slowly died away,

And herds of strange deer, silver-white,

Stole forth among the branches grey;

About the coming of the light,

They fled like ghosts before the day!

I know not if the forest green

Still girdles round that castle grey;

I know not if the boughs between

The white deer vanish ere the day;

Above my Love the grass is green,

My heart is colder than the clay!