Tell her that sweetly sings and softly moves, A white swan winds all night below my trees; My nightingale attunes the moon‐lit groves— Can I not portion out my heart with these? If I were dead, my cypress would lament, My rose‐tree shed its leaves upon my grave, My nightingale weep long in forest tent— She would not mourn me dead that scorns to save. IV. Thou cam’st, thou cam’st; and with thee came delight, Not mine alone. The little flowers and leaves Shook at the first gleam of thy garment white; And still yon myrtle thrills, yon almond heaves. Thou spak’st! That voice, methinks, is heard on high! The buds and blooms in every amaranth wreath By angels worn expand in ecstasy; And in pure light a heavenlier fragrance breathe. Hail, Land that gav’st her birth! Hail, precinct old! Hail, ancient Race, the Lebanonian crown! The Turk hath empire, and the Frank hath gold: Virtue and Beauty, these are thy renown! V. Thou wentest: with thy going came my night: As some deep vale when sudden sinks the sun, Deep, yet suspended on the mountain height And girt by snows, am I when thou art gone. With death those hills, so late all amethyst, At once are clad: the streams are filmed with ice: The golden ether changeth into mist: Cold drops run down the beetling precipice: The instant darkness cometh as a wind, Or falleth as the falling of a pall:— Return, my light of life, my better mind, My spirit’s day, my hope, my strength, mine all! VI. Breathe healthful zephyrs, airs of Paradise, Breathe gently on that alabaster brow; Shake the dark lashes of those violet eyes; Flatter those lids that such high grace allow. Those cheeks, pure lilies, capture with sweet stealth, And warm with something of a rose‐like glow; Those tremulous smiles, costlier than miser’s wealth, Draw out; those magic tresses backward blow! Thus much is yours. ’Tis mine where once she strayed To cull sad flowers that ne’er shall meet her sight; To watch, close shrouded in the tall rock’s shade, High up one little casement’s glimmering light. VII. Seest thou, O maid! some star by us unseen, Buried from us in depths of starless space? Know’st thou some joy of lesser joys the queen, That lights so sweet a mystery in thy face? That face is as the face of them that bask In some great tidings, or the face of one Who late hath set his hand upon some task By God ordained, that shall for God be done. That light is as the light of them who bent— That shepherd choir—above the Babe new born: Upward from Him thy day is ever sent, A lifelong kindling of the Bethlehem morn. VIII. Since that strange moment, Love was as a breeze, And I a leaf wafted by it along: Onward ’twixt magic heavens and mystic seas We passed. If I was weak, yet Love was strong. On, ever on, through mountainous defiles, By Love sustained, upborne, on piloted, I wound o’er laughing lakes and happy isles; I asked not whither, and I felt no dread.