I know not where it was I saw them sit, For in my dreams I had outwandered far That endless wanderer men call the sea— Whose winds like incantations wrap the world And help the moon in her high mysteries. I know not how it was that I was led Unto their tryst; or what dim infinite Of perfect and imperishable night Hung round, a radiance ineffable; For I was too intoxicate and tranced With beauty that I knew was very love. So when divinity from her had stolen Into his spirit, as, from fields of myrrh Or forests of red sandal by the sea, Steal slaking airs, and he began to speak, "Your glance sends fragrance sweeter than the lily, Your hands are visible bodiments of song You are the voice that April light has lost, Her silence that was music of glad birds. The wind's heart have you, and its mystery, When poet Spring comes piping o'er the hills To make of Tartarus forgotten fear. Yea all the generations of the world, Whose whence and whither but the gods shall know. Are vassal to your vows forevermore." And she, I knew, made answer, for her words Fell warm as womanhood with wordless things, But I had drifted on within my dream, To that pale space which is oblivion. |