WHAT THE VIOLINS SAID.

By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Do I love you? Do I love you?

Ask the heavens that bend above you

To find language and to prove you

If they love the living sun.

Ask the burning, blinded meadows

If they love the falling shadows,

If they hold the happy shadows

When the fervid day is done.

Ask the blue-bells and the daisies,

Lost amid the hot field-mazes,

Lifting up their thirsty faces,

If they love the summer rains.

Ask the linnets and the plovers,

In the nest-life made for lovers,

Ask the bees and ask the clovers —

Will they tell you for your pains?

Do I, Darling, do I love you?

What, I pray, can that behoove you?

How in Love's name can I move you?

When for Love's sake I am dumb!

If I told you, if I told you,

Would that keep you, would that hold you,

Here at last where I enfold you?

If it would — Hush! Darling, come!