UNDER THE ROSE

He told a story to her,

A story old yet new —

And was it of the Faery Folk

That dance along the dew?

The night was hung with silence

As a room is hung with cloth,

And soundless, through the rose-sweet hush,

Swooned dim the down-white moth.

Along the east a shimmer,

A tenuous breath of flame,

From which, as from a bath of light,

Nymph-like, the girl-moon came.

And pendent in the purple

Of heaven, like fireflies,

Bubbles of gold the great stars blew

From windows of the skies.

He told a story to her,

A story full of dreams —

And was it of the Elfin things

That haunt the thin moonbeams?

Upon the hill a thorn-tree,

Crooked and gnarled and gray,

Against the moon seemed some crutch'd hag

Dragging a child away.

And in the vale a runnel,

That dripped from shelf to shelf,

Seemed, in the night, a woodland witch

Who muttered to herself.

Along the land a zephyr,

Whose breath was wild perfume,

That seemed a sorceress who wove

Sweet spells of beam and bloom.

He told a story to her,

A story young yet old —

And was it of the mystic things

Men's eyes shall ne'er behold?

They heard the dew drip faintly

From out the green-cupped leaf;

They heard the petals of the rose

Unfolding from their sheaf.

They saw the wind light-footing

The waters into sheen;

They saw the starlight kiss to sleep

The blossoms on the green.

They heard and saw these wonders;

These things they saw and heard;

And other things within the heart

For which there is no word.

He told a story to her,

The story men call Love,

Whose echoes fill the ages past,

And the world ne'er tires of.