IV. "THERE sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, If that hypothesis of theirs be sound," Said Ida; "let us down and rest:" and we But when we planted level feet, and dipt Then she, "Let some one sing to us; lightlier move The minutes fledged with music ;" and a maid, Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang: 'Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, "Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. "Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; "Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; She ended with such passion that the tear, She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl Lost in her bosom: but with some disdain Answered the Princess, “If indeed there haunt About the mouldered lodges of the Past So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, But trim our sails, and let old bygones be While down the streams that float us each and all To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, Throne after throne, and molten on the waste Becomes a cloud: for all things serve their time Toward that great year of equal mights and rights, Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end Found golden: let the past be past; let be Their cancelled Babels: though the rough kex break The starred mosaic, and the wild goat hang Upon the shaft, and the wild fig-tree split Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear A trumpet in the distance pealing news then to me; "Know you no song of your own land," she said, "Not such as moans about the retrospect, But deals with the other distance and the hues Then I remembered one myself had made Now while I sang; and maidenlike as far "O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee. "O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North. "O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and thrill, And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. "O were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. "Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green? "O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since my nest is made. "O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South. "O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee." I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time, Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips, And knew not what they meant; for still my voice Rang false but smiling, "Not for thee," she said, |