I heard the buds open their lips and whisper,
Whisper,
"Spring is here!"
The robins listened
And sang it loud.
The blue-birds came
In a fluttering crowd.
The cardinal preached
It high and proud,
Spring!

And thro the warm earth their song went trilling,
Trilling,
"Wake! Arise!"
The kingcups quickly
Assembled, strong.
The bluets stept
From the moss in throng.

I

In other worlds I loved you, long ago:
Love that hath no beginning hath no end.
The woodbine whispers, low and sweet and low,
In other worlds I loved you, long ago;
The firwoods murmur and the sea-waves know
The message that the setting sun shall send.
In other worlds I loved you, long ago:
Love that hath no beginning hath no end.


II

And God sighed in the sunset; and the sea
Chanted the soft recessional of Time
Against the golden shores of mystery;

A drizzle of drifting rain
And a blurred white lamp o'erhead,
That shines as my love will shine again
In the world of the dead.

Round me the wet black night,
And, afar in the limitless gloom,
Crimson and green, two blossoms of light,
Two stars of doom.

But the night of death is aflare
With a torch of back-blown fire,
And the coal-black deeps of the quivering air
Rend for my soul's desire.

Leap, heart, for the pulse and the roar
And the lights of the streaming train
That leaps with the heart of thy love once more

I

Thy house is dark and still: I stand once more
Beside the marble door.
It opens as of old: thy pale, pale face
Peers thro' the narrow space:
Thy hands are mine, thy hands are mine to hold,
Just as of old.


II

"Hush! hush! or God will hear us! Ah, speak low
As Love spake long ago."
"Sweet, sweet, are these thine arms, thy breast, thy hair
Assuaging my despair,
Assuaging the long thirst, quenching the tears
Of all these years?

O, unforgotten lips, grey haunting eyes,
Soft curving cheeks and heart-remembered brow,
It is all true, the old love never dies;
And, parted, we must meet for ever now.

We did not think it true! We did not think
Love meant this universal cry of pain,
This crown of thorn, this vinegar to drink,
This lonely crucifixion o'er again.

Yet through the darkness of the sleepless night
Your tortured face comes meekly answering mine;
Dumb, but I know why those mute lips are white;
Dark, but I know why those dark lashes shine.

O, many a lover sighs
Beneath the summer skies
For black or hazel eyes
All day.
No light of hope can mar
My whiter brighter star;
I love a Princess far
Away.

Now you that haste to meet
Your love's returning feet
Must plead for every sweet
Caress;
But, day and night and day,
Without a prayer to pray,
I love my far away
Princess.

Love, awake! Ah, let thine eyes
Open, clouded with thy dreams.
Now the shy sweet rosy skies,
Love, awake. Ah, let thine eyes
Dawn before the last star dies.
O'er thy breast the rose-light gleams:
Love, awake! Ah, let thine eyes
Open, clouded with thy dreams.

Love, so strangely lost and found,
Love, beyond the seas of death,
Love, immortally re-crowned,
Love, who swayest this mortal breath,
Sweetlier to thy lover's ear
Steals the tale that ne'er was told;
Bright-eyes, ah, thine arms are near,
Nearer now than e'er of old.

When on earth thy hands were mine,
Mine to hold for evermore,
Oft we watched the sunset shine
Lonely from this wave-beat shore;
Pent in prison-cells of clay,
Time had power on thee and me:
Thou and heaven are one to-day,
One with earth and sky and sea;

Who have loved and ceased to love, forget
That ever they loved in their lives, they say;
Only remember the fever and fret,
And the pain of Love, that was all his pay;
All the delight of him passes away
From hearts that hoped, and from lips that met -
Too late did I love you, my love, and yet
I shall never forget till my dying day.

Too late were we 'ware of the secret net
That meshes the feet in the flowers that stray;
There were we taken and snared, Lisette,
In the dungeon of La Fausse Amistie;
Help was there none in the wide world's fray,

Not Jason nor Medea wise,
I crave to see, nor win much lore,
Nor list to Orpheus' minstrelsies;
Nor Her'cles would I see, that o'er
The wide world roamed from shore to shore;
Nor, by St. James, Penelope, -
Nor pure Lucrece, such wrong that bore:
To see my Love suffices me!

Virgil and Cato, no man vies
With them in wealth of clerkly store;
I would not see them with mine eyes;
Nor him that sailed, sans sail nor oar,
Across the barren sea and hoar,
And all for love of his ladye;
Nor pearl nor sapphire takes me more:
To see my Love suffices me!