The lake she haunts gleams mistily

Through sleepy boughs of melody,—

Lost 'mid lone hills beside the sea,

In tangled bush and brier:—

Where reflected sunsets write

Ghostly things in golden light;

Where, along the pine-crowned height,

Clouds of twilight, rosy white,

Build far towers of fire.

'Mid the rushes there that swing,

Flowering flags where voices sing

When night-winds are murmuring,

And the stars of midnight glitter;

Blossom-white, with purple locks,

Underneath the stars' still flocks,

In the dusky waves she rocks,

Rocks, and all the landscape mocks

With a song both sweet and bitter.

Soft it sounds, at first, as dreams

Filled with tears that fall in streams;

Then it soars, until it seems

Beauty's very self hath spoken;

And the woods grow silent quite,

Stars wax faint and flowers wane white;

And the nightingales that light

Near, or hear her through the night,

Die, their hearts with longing broken.

Dark, dim, and sad o'er mournful lands,

White-throated stars heaped in her hands,

Like wildwood buds, the Twilight stands,

The Twilight, dreaming, lingers;

Listening where the Limnad sings

Witcheries, whose magic brings

A great moon from hidden springs,

Pale with amorous quiverings

Feet of fire and silvery fingers.

In the vales Auloniads,

On the mountains Oreads,

On the leas Leimoniads,

Whiter than the stars that glisten,

Large-eyed, Siren-like she stands,

In the lake or on its sands,

And with rapture from the hands

Of the Night some stars are shaken;

To her song the rushes swing,

Lilies nod and ripples ring,

Lost in helpless listening—

These will wake who hear her sing,

But one mortal will not waken.