are wet,
When the dusk is deep and gray.
For the peasant lovers go by beneath,
I hear them laugh and kiss,
And I forget my day-dream knight,
And long for a love like this.
II
The Minstrel sings:
I lie beside the princess' tower,
So close she cannot see my face,
And watch her dreaming all day long,
And bending with a lily's grace.
Her cheeks are paler than the moon
That sails along a sunny sky,
And yet her silent mouth is red
Where tender words and kisses lie.
I am a minstrel with a harp,
For love of her my songs are sweet,
And yet I dare not lift the voice
That lies so far beneath her feet.
III
The Knight sings:
O princess cease your dreams awhile
And look adown your tower's gray side—
The princess gazes far away,
Nor hears nor heeds the words I cried.
Perchance my heart was overbold,
God made her dreams too pure to break,
She sees the angels in the air
Fly to and fro for Mary's sake.
Farewell, I mount and go my way,
—But oh her hair the sun sifts thro'—
The tilts and tourneys wait my spear,
I am the Knight of the Plume of Blue.
WHEN
LOVE WAS BORN
When Love was born I think he lay
Right warm on Venus' breast,
And whiles he smiled and whiles would play
And whiles would take his rest.
But always, folded out of sight,
The wings were growing strong
That were to bear him off in flight
Erelong, erelong.
THE SHRINE
There is no lord within my heart,
Left silent as an empty shrine
Where rose and myrtle intertwine,
Within a place apart.
No god is there of carven stone
To watch with still approving eyes
My thoughts like steady incense rise;
I dream and weep alone.
But if I keep my altar fair,
Some morning I shall lift my head
From roses deftly garlanded
To find the god is there.
THE BLIND
The birds are all a-building,
They say the world's a-flower,
And still I linger lonely
Within a barren bower.
I weave a web of fancies
Of tears and darkness spun.
How shall I sing of sunlight
Who never saw the sun?
I hear the pipes a-blowing,
But yet I may not dance,
I know that Love is passing,
I cannot catch his glance.
And if his voice should call me
And I with groping dim
Should reach his place of calling
And stretch my arms to him,
The wind would blow between my hands
For Joy that I shall miss,
The rain would fall upon my mouth
That his will never kiss.
LOVE ME
Brown-thrush singing all day long
In the leaves above me,
Take my love this little song,
"Love me, love me, love me!"
When he harkens what you say,
Bid him, lest he miss me,
Leave his work or leave his play,
And kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!
THE SONG
FOR COLIN
I sang a song at dusking time
Beneath the evening star,
And Terence left his latest rhyme
To answer from afar.
Pierrot
