A plaintive song, so strangely sweet and old,
That all my soul within itself would fold
And gently keep so quaint a melody,
That like a bird’s its notes of liquid gold
Might oft repeat their sweetness unto me.
A tale of joyless splendor long ago,
Of wedded lady and of loveless woe,
How she to soothe her sick heart’s misery
Cradled in vines her little child, and so
Sang of dear love beneath a greenwood tree.
And through it all there runs such saddest plaint,
As sweet as lutes, now murmurous, now faint,
Till, like the far-heard sighing of the sea,
It sweeps in gathering passion past restraint,
Then breaks, and croons in mournful minor key.
Ah, well-a-day! I listen breathless till
I half believe that sorrowing singer still
Dreams on divinely by the whispering tree;
For in your voice all tenderest heart-strings thrill,
And all the woodland’s marvelous minstrelsy!