Classic Poem

Tinkle-trink, tinkle-trink, trinkle-trinkle, trink!
Hark, the mandolin!
Through the dusk the merry music falleth sweet.
Where the fountain falls,
Where the fountain falls all shimmering in the moonshine white,
Tinkle-trink, tinkle-trink, trinkle-trinkle, trink!
Where the wind-stirred olives quiver,
Quiver, quiver, leaves a-quiver,
White as silver in the moonlight but like bat-wings in the dusk,
Where the great grey moths sail slowly
Slowly, slowly, like faint dreams
In the wildering woods of Sleep,
Where no night or day is,
But only, in dim twilights, the wan sheen
Of the Moon of Sleep.

Hark, the mandolin!
Where the dark-coned cypress rises,
Thin, more thin, till threadlike, wavering
The last spray soars up as smoke,
As a vanishing breath of incense,
To the silent stars that glimmer
In the veil of purple darkness,
The deep vault of heaven that seemeth
As a veil that falleth,
A dark veil that foldeth gently
The tired day-worn world, breathing stilly as a sleeping child.
Hark, the Mandolin:
And a soft low sound of laughter!
Tinkle-trink, tinkle-trink, trinkle-trinkle, trink!

Hush: from out the cypress standing
Black against the yellow moonlight
What a thrill, what a sob, what a sudden rapture flung
Athwart the dark!
Passion of song!
Silence again, save 'mid the whispering leaves
The unquiet wind, that as the tide.
Cometh and goeth.
Now one long thrilling note, prolonged and sweet,
And then a low swift stir, A whirr of fluttering wings,
And, in the laurels near, two nested nightingales!
Loud, loud, the mandolin,
Tinkle-trink, tinkle-trink, trinkle-trinkle, trink!
Trink, trink, trinkle-trink!
Through the fragrant silent night it draweth near,
Ali, the low cry, the little laugh, the rustle
Tinkle-trink — hush, a kiss — tinkle-trink , — hush — hush —
Trinkle-trinkle, trinkle-trink, trinkle-trinkle, trink!

Where the shadows massed together
Make a hollow darkness, girt
By the yellow flood of moonshine floating by,
Where the groves of ilex whisper
In the silence, fragrant, sweet,
Where the ilexes are dreaming
In their depths of darkest shadow,
Move the fireflies slowly,
Mazily inweaving,
Interweaving, interflowing
Wandering fires, like little lanterns
Borne by souls of birds and flowers
Seeking ever resurrection
In the gladsome world of sunshine
Seekly vainly through the darkness
In beneath the ilex-branches
Where the very moonshine faileth,
And the dark grey moths wave wanly
Flitting from the outer gloaming.
Oh, the fragrance, and the mystery, and the silence!
Where the fireflies, 'mid the ilex,
Rise and fall, recross, inweave
In an endless wavy motion,
In a slow aerial dancing

In a maze of little flames
In and out the ilex-branches:
Hush! the mandolin!
Louder still, and louder, louder:
Ah, the happy laugh, and rustle,
Rustle, rustle,
Ah, the kiss, the cry, the rapture.
Silence, where the ilex-branches
Loom out faintly from their darkness
Where, slow-wandering flames, the fireflies
Rise and fall, recross, inweave
In an endless wavy motion,
In a slow aerial dancing.

Silence: not a breath is stirring
Not a leaflet quivers faintly.
Silence: even the bats are silent
Wheeling swiftly through the upper air,
Where the gnat's thin shrilling music
Fades into the flooding moonlight:
Hush, low whispered words and kisses,
Hush, a cry of pain, of rapture.
Not a sound, a sound thereafter,
But a low sweet sigh of breathing,
And, from out the flowering laurel,
Just a twittering breath of music,
Just a long-drawn pulsing note
Of a sweet and passionate answer.
Silence: hark, a stir-low laughter
Whispered words-and rustle-rustle
Trink — trink — the mandolin!
Hark, it trinkles down the valley,
Trink-trink, trinkle-trink, trinkle-trink!
Past the citrus, blooming whitely,
Past the oleander-bushes
Past the ilexes and olives;
Where the two tall pines are whispering
With the sleepy wind that foldeth
His tired pinions ere he sleepeth
On the flood of amber moonlight.
Wind o' the night, tired wind o' night —
Tinkle-trink, trink, trinkle-trink,
Trink, trinkle-trink,
Trink!