93 . She comes as comes the Summer Night

SHE comes as comes the summer night,

Violet, perfumed, clad with stars,

To heal the eyes hurt by the light

Flung by Day’s brandish’d scimitars.

The parted crimson of her lips

Like sunset clouds that slowly die

When twilight with cool finger-tips

Unbraids her tresses in the sky.

The melody of waterfalls

Is in the music of her tongue,

Low chanted in dim forest halls

Ere Dawn’s loud bugle call has rung.

And as a bird with hovering wings

Halts o’er her young one in the nest,

Then droops to still his flutterings,

She takes me to her fragrant breast.

O star and bird at once thou art,

And Night, with purple-petall’d charm,

Shining and singing to my heart,

And soothing with a dewy calm.

Let Death assume this lovely guise,

So darkly beautiful and sweet,

And, gazing with those starry eyes,

Lead far away my weary feet.

And that strange sense of valleys fair

With birds and rivers making song

To lull the blossoms gleaming there,

Be with me as I pass along.

Ah! lovely sisters, Night and Death,

And lovelier Woman—wondrous three,

‘Givers of Life’, my spirit saith,

Unfolders of the mystery.

Ah! only Love could teach me this,

In memoried springtime long since flown;

Red lips that trembled to my kiss,

That sighed farewell, and left me lone.

O Joy and Sorrow intertwined,—

A kiss, a sigh, and blinding tears,—

Yet ever after in the wind,

The bird-like music of the spheres!