Storms unsmoothed your folded valleys, And made all your cedars frown; Leaves were whirling in the alleys Which your lovers wandered down. --Sitting cheerless in your bowers, The hands propping the sunk head, Do they gall you, the long hours, And the hungry thought that must be fed? Is the pleasure that is tasted Patient of a long review? Will the fire joy hath wasted, Mused on, warm the heart anew? --Or, are those old thoughts returning, Guests the dull sense never knew, Stars, set deep, yet inly burning, Germs, your untrimmed passion overgrew? Once, like us, you took your station, Watchers for a purer fire; But you drooped in expectation, And you wearied in desire. When the first rose flush was steeping All the frore peak’s awful crown, Shepherds say, they found you sleeping In some windless valley, farther down. Then you wept, and slowly raising Your dozed eyelids, sought again, Half in doubt, they say, and gazing Sadly back, the seats of men; Snatched a turbid inspiration From some transient earthly sun, And proclaimed your vain ovation For those mimic raptures you had won.... * * * * * With a sad, majestic motion, With a stately, slow surprise, From their earthward-bound devotion Lifting up your languid eyes-- Would you freeze my louder boldness, Dumbly smiling as you go, One faint frown of distant coldness Flitting fast across each marble brow? Do I brighten at your sorrow, O sweet pleaders? doth my lot Find assurance in to-morrow Of one joy which you have not? Oh, speak once, and shame my sadness! Let this sobbing, Phrygian strain, Mocked and baffled by your gladness, Mar the music of your feasts in vain! * * * * * Scent, and song, and light, and flowers! Gust on gust, the harsh winds blow-- Come, bind up those ringlet showers! Roses for that dreaming brow! Come, once more that ancient lightness, Glancing feet, and eager eyes! Let your broad lamps flash the brightness Which the sorrow-stricken day denies. Through black depths of serried shadows, Up cold aisles of buried glade; In the mist of river-meadows Where the looming deer are laid; From your dazzled windows streaming, From your humming festal room, Deep and far, a broken gleaming Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom. Where I stand, the grass is glowing: Doubtless you are passing fair! But I hear the north wind blowing, And I feel the cold night-air, Can I look on your sweet faces, And your proud heads backward thrown, From this dusk of leaf-strewn places With the dumb woods and the night alone?