Fast, fast asleep my Edith lies,
With her snowy night-dress on;
Closed are now her sparkling eyes;
All her merry thoughts are gone.
Gone! ah no! perhaps she dreams;
Perhaps she views the crystal streams,
Wanders in the grove and field,—
What hath sleep to her revealed?

Bat and owl enjoy the night;
All the stars are sweetly twinkling;
While the Moon doth shed her light
On the brooklet gently tinkling:
Perhaps for her the Sun doth shine;
Perhaps she pulls the king-cups fine;
Merry birds around her singing,
Now she hears the echoes ringing!

Come to me, dearest, I'm lonely without thee;
Daytime and night-time, I'm thinking about thee;
Night-time and daytime, in dreams I behold thee;
Unwelcome the waking which ceases to fold thee.
Come to me, darling, my sorrows to lighten,
Come in thy beauty to bless and to brighten;
Come in thy womanhood, meekly and lowly,
Come in thy lovingness, queenly and holy.

Swallows will flit round the desolate ruin,
Telling of spring and its joyous renewing;
And thoughts of thy love and its manifold treasure,
Are circling my heart with a promise of pleasure.

Down along the mountains, down to Damascus,
The little Nahr Baradâ waters all the wide wilderness,
Flowing like a holy thing into thirsty gardens,
Where the fair pomegranate, bride among the trees,
Blushes with delight, while the camel bells tinkle
On trails cooled from far above by Hermon's snowy breeze.

Down into the valley, on the same pilgrimage
It made when Thebes and Babylon were marts of living men,
It flows to the city's rim that burgeons still because of it;
Nor cares whether Christian bell or minaret be heard;

I know him, February's thrush,
And loud at eve he valentines
On sprays that paw the naked bush
Where soon will sprout the thorns and bines.

Now ere the foreign singer thrills
Our vale his plain-song pipe he pours,
A herald of the million bills;
And heed him not, the loss is yours.

My study, flanked with ivied fir
And budded beech with dry leaves curled,
Perched over yew and juniper,
He neighbours, piping to this world:--

The wooded pathways dank on brown,
The branches on grey cloud a web,
The long green roller of the down,

Oft hast thou heard it, that old true saying,
'Tis like and unlike makes the happiest music.
Then, gravely smiling, scorn me not, Myvanwy,
Fairest of maidens.

Thou who in sunlight sittest, pensive leaning
At the open window, thy hand deep-buried
In dark sweet clusters of thy hair, and gazest
O'er the wide ocean.

Yes, o'er the ocean far, far in the distance,
Is my own country, and other soil bore me
Than thy dear birthplace, other sun than England's
Nourished my spirit.

Yet for this slight not my heart as alien:

Belovèd, let me grope and lie
In the triumphant reaches of your soul;
That singing and barbaric sky
Which is my goal.

Age cannot make the way less fresh;
And bar me if I ever dare despise
The close and friendly house of flesh
Through which it lies.

But ever slowly let me move
Through twisting roads of passion, gates of care;
And the dark labyrinth of love
That leads me there.

The Muses wrapped in mysteries of light
Came in a rush of music on the night;
And I was lifted wildly on quick wings,
And borne away into the deep of things.
The dead doors of my being broke apart;
A wind of rapture blew across the heart;
The inward song of worlds rang still and clear;
I felt the Mystery the Muses fear;
Yet they went swiftening on the ways untrod,
And hurled me breathless at the feet of God.

I felt faint touches of the Final Truth,—
Moments of trembling love, moments of youth.
A vision swept away the human wall;

Lonely and lovely, grave and good,
With the innocent-hearted hardihood....
Of a maid that walks in a pensive mood
My Queen comes up through the weird witch-wood.

Her presence enlightens the leafy gloom
Of the forest aisles where the shadows loom,
Where the fairest sight is a wildflower's bloom,
Or the lustrous flash of a peacock plume.

Over her, spreading, the green boughs meet,
Under her tread lies a fairy street,
Round her butterflies flaunt and fleet,
Flowers are blowing and herbs grow sweet,

She passes near, but the joy that's bred

Water-Boy, where are yo' hidin'?
If yo' don't-a come, I'm gwineter tell-a yo' Mammy.

Dere ain't no hammer dat's on-a dis mountain,
Dat ring-a like mine, boys, dat ring-a like mine.
Done bus' dis rock, boys, f'om hyah to Macon,
All de way to de jail, boys, yes, back to de jail.

Yo' Jack-o'-Di'monds, yo' Jack-o'-Di'monds,
I know yo' of old, boys, yas, I know yo' of old.
Yo' robbed ma pocket, yas, robba ma pocket,
Done robba ma pocket of silver an' gold.

Water-Boy, where are yo' hidin'?
If yo' don't-a come, I'm gwineter tell-a yo' Mammy.

It is an honorable thought,
And makes one lift one's hat,
As one encountered gentlefolk
Upon a daily street,

That we've immortal place,
Though pyramids decay,
And kingdoms, like the orchard,
Flit russetly away.