‘Twas late of eve— the first of May—
An evening May—‘twas time for love.
Love’s call was sounded by a turtle-dove,
Where the pine scented forest lay.
Of love did lisp the moss beneath;
Enblossomed tree lied love’s sweet pain,
A philomel to a rose sang his love refrain,
The rose’s appeared in her fragrant breath.
The glassy lake through the woodland’s range
Its sorrow spoke in doleful sound
The shore embraced it round and round;
And the brilliant suns of planets strange
Meandered ’pon their azure careers
Flaming there like Love’s prime tears.
E’en those far orbs, their jeweled way wending
Heavenwards as to Love’s sacred fane ascended,
Until — one for the other with passion burning
Into sparks lusterless rapidly turning —
Met, wandering lovers like, whose quest hath ended.
The full visaged Luna’s beauteous countenance —
So brightly pale, so pale bright —
As the face of Love seeking her knight —
Hath flushed to a rose-tinted radiance;
Upon the waters her face clear defined
She found, and in self-admiration pined.
Gaunt manors’ grey shadows, yet on they prest,
One toward the other ever advancing,
As if, deep and deeper within clasp entrancing
In dusk’s lap they yearned to cuddle in rest,
Until dark they’ll be but one.
With them tree met a tree, not to be outdone.
And, the farthest, mountains in dim grandeur —
There the fir-tree and birch, the birch and fir
In silence confer. Wave after wave, careening
Comes arush through the brook. With love full teeming .mw-parser-output .nowrap,.mw-parser-output .nowrap a:before,.mw-parser-output .nowrap .selflink:before{white-space:nowrap}— —
In time of love — each creature doth stir.
’Mid the evening’s roseate haze
Beneath an oak, sits maid surpassing fair,
’Pon cliff in the lake’s edge; and is lost agaze
Far over the liquid bare.
Here the blue waste her foot is greeting,
Yond putting on an emeraldine cast.
Green and greener still the desert vast,
’Till in pale distance it all is meeting.
Far o’er its ripples, wayward and fleeting,
The eye-weary maiden doth peer;
Upon the waves, ’midswirl and beating,
Only the stars’ reflections appear.
A fallen angel, damsel beauteous as day,
An amaranth branch like that withers in May,
Within her faded cheek lie charms most rare.
The hour that stole all she had hight her own,
Left her lips, her eyes and brow so fair
With fetching trace of sorrow sown.