When pearl and gold, o'er deeps of musk,
The moon curves, silvering the dusk,—
As in a garden, dreaming,
A lily slips its dewy husk
A firefly in its gleaming,—
I of my garden am a guest;
My garden, that, in beauty dressed
Of simple shrubs and oldtime flowers,
Chats with me of the perished hours,
When she companioned me in life,
Living remote from care and strife.
It says to me: "How sad and slow
The hours of daylight come and go,
Until the Night walks here again
With moon and starlight in her train,
And she and I with perfumed words
Of winds and waters, dreaming birds,
And flowers and crickets and the moon,
For hour on hour, in soul commune.—"
And you, and you,
Sit here and listen in the dew
For her, the love, you used to know,
Who often walked here, long ago,
Long ago;
The young, sweet love you used to know
Long ago
Whom oft I watched with violet eye,
Or eye of dew, as she passed by:
As she passed by.
And I reply, with half a sigh:—
"You knew her too as well as I,
That young sweet love of long-ago!
That young sweet love, who walked here slow.—
Oh, speak no more of the days gone by,
Dear days gone by,
Lest I lay me down on your heart and die!"