A song
    To one a dreaming:  when the dew
Falls, ’tis a time for rest; and when the bird
  Calls, ’tis a time to wake, to wake for you. 
A long-waking, aye, waking till a word
  Come from her coral mouth to be the true
Sum of all good heart wanted, ear hath heard.

Yet if alas! might love thy dolour be,
Dream, dear heart dear, and do not dream of me.

I sing
    To one awakened, when the heart
  Cries ’tis a day for thought, and when the soul
Sighs choose thy part, O choose thy part, thy part. 
  I bring to one beloved, bring my whole
Store, make in loving, make O make mine art
  More.  Yet I ask no, ask no wished goal

But this—­if loving might thy dolour be,
Wake, O my lady loved, and love not me.

’That which the many win, love’s niggard sum,
  I will not, if love’s all be left behind. 
That which I am I cannot unbecome,
  My past not unpossess, nor future blind. 
Let me all risk, and leave the deep heart dumb
  For ever, if that maiden sits enshrined
The saint of one more happy.  She is she. 
There is none other.  Give her then to me.

Or else to be the better for her face
  Beholding it no more.’  Then all night through
The shadow moves with infinite dark grace. 
  The light is on her windows, and the dew
Comforts the world and me, till in my place
  At moonsetting, when stars flash out to view,
Comes ’neath the cedar boughs a great repose,
The peace of one renouncing, and then a doze.

There was no dream, yet waxed a sense in me
  Asleep that patience was the better way,
Appeasement for a want that needs must be,
  Grew as the dominant mind forbore its sway,
Till whistling sweet stirred in the cedar tree—­
  I started—­woke—­it was the dawn of day. 
That was the end.  ’Slow solemn growth of light,
Come what come will, remains to me this night.’

It was the end, with dew ordained to melt,
  How easily was learned, how all too soon
Not there, not thereabout such maiden dwelt. 
  What was it promised me so fair a boon? 
Heart-hope is not less vain because heart-felt,
  Gone forth once more in search of her at noon
Through the sweet country side on hill, on plain,
I sought and sought many long days in vain.

To Malvern next, with feathery woodland hung,
  Whereto old Piers the Plowman came to teach,
On her green vasty hills the lay was sung,
  He too, it may be, lisping in his speech,
‘To make the English sweet upon his tongue.’ 
   How many maidens beautiful, and each
Might him delight, that loved no other fair;
But Malvern blessed not me,—­she was not there.

Then to that town, but still my fate the same. 
  Crowned with old works that her right well beseem,
To gaze upon her field of ancient fame
  And muse on the sad thrall’s most piteous dream,
By whom a ‘shadow like an angel came,’
  Crying out on Clarence, its wild eyes agleam,
Accusing echoes here still falter and flee,
‘That stabbed me on the field by Tewkesbury.’