fern at
break of day,
Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair that swept in a sun-bright
glory around her,
Down to the valley her light feet stole, ah, soft as the budding of
flowers in May.

Down to the valley she came, for far and far below in the
dreaming meadows
Pleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his love by her
golden name;
So she arose from her home in the hills, and down through the blossoms
that danced with their shadows,
Out of the blue of the dreaming distance, down to the heart of her
lover she came.

* * * *

Red were the lips that hovered above her lips in the flowery haze of the
June-day:
Red as a rose through the perfumed mist of passion that reeled before
her eyes;
Strong the smooth young sunburnt arms that folded her heart to his heart
in the noon-day,
Strong and supple with throbbing sunshine under the blinding
southern skies.

Ah, the kisses, the little murmurs, mad with pain for their
phantom fleetness,
Mad with pain for the passing of love that lives, they
dreamed--as we dream--for an hour!
Ah, the sudden tempest of passion, mad with pain, for its
over-sweetness,
As petal by petal and pang by pang their love broke out into
perfect flower.

Ah, the wonder as once he wakened, out of a dream of remembered blisses,
Couched in the meadows of dreaming blossom to feel, like the touch of
a flower on his eyes,
Cool and fresh with the fragment dews of dawn the touch of her light
swift kisses,
Shed from the shadowy rose of her face between his face and the warm
blue skies.

II

Lost in his new desire
He dreamed away the hours;
His lyre
Lay buried in the flowers:

To whom the King of Heaven,
Apollo, lord of light,
Had given
Beauty and love and might:

Might, if he would, to slay
All evil dreams and pierce
The grey
Veil of the Universe;

With Love that holds in one
Sacred and ancient bond
The sun
And all the vast beyond,

And Beauty to enthrall
The soul of man to heaven:
Yea, all
These gifts to him were given.

_Yet in his dream's desire
He drowsed away the hours:
His lyre