Thy voice the song of hidden rills,
The sigh deep-bosomed silence heaves
From the full heart of happy things,—­
The lap of water-lily leaves,
The noiseless language of the wings
Of evening making strange the hills.

JUNE

We thought that winter, love, would never end,
  That the dark year had slain the innocent May,
  Nor hoped that your soft hand, this summer day,
Would lie, as now, in mine, beloved friend;
  And, like some magic spring, your dream-deep eyes
  Hold all the summer skies.

But lo! the world again is mad with flowers,
  The long white silence spake, small bird by bird,
Blade after blade, amid the song of showers,
  The grass stole back once more, and there was heard
The ancient music of the vernal spheres,
Half laughter and half tears.

Ah! love, and now too swiftly, like some groom,
  Raining hot kisses on his bride’s young mouth,
  The mad young year, delirious with the South,
Squanders his fairy treasure, bloom on bloom;
  Too soon the wild rose hastens to be sweet,
  Too swift, O June, thy feet.

Tarry a little, summer, crowd not so
  All glory and gladness in so brief a day,
Teach all thy dancing flowers a step more slow,
  And bid thy wild musicians softlier play,
O hast thou thought, that like a madman spends,
The longest summer ends.

GREEN SILENCE

Silence, whose drowsy eyelids are soft leaves,
  And whose half-sleeping eyes are the blue flowers,
On whose still breast the water-lily heaves,
  For all her speech the whisper of the showers.

Made of all things that in the water sway,
  The quiet reed kissing the arrowhead,
The willows murmuring, all a summer day,
  “Silence”—­sweet word, and ne’er so softly said

As here along this path of brooding peace,
  Where all things dream, and nothing else is done
But all such gentle businesses as these
  Of leaves and rippling wind, and setting sun

Turning the stream to a long lane of gold,
  Where the young moon shall walk with feet of pearl,
And, framed in sleeping lilies, fold on fold,
  Gaze at herself, like any mortal girl.

SUMMER SONGS

I

How thick the grass,
  How green the shade—­
All for love
  And lovers made.

Wood-lilies white
  As hidden lace—­
Open your bodice,
  That’s their place.

See how the sun-god
  Overpowers
The summer lying
  Deep in flowers;

With burning kisses
  Of bright gold
Fills her young womb
  With joy untold;

And all the world
  Is lad and lass,
A blue sky
  And a couch of grass.