The south wind rose at dusk of the winter day,
 The warm breath of the western sea
 Circling wrapped the isle with his cloak of cloud,
 And it now reached even to me, at dusk of the day,
 And moaned in the branches aloud:
 While here and there, in patches of dark space,
 A star shone forth from its heavenly place,
 As a spark that is borne in the smoky chase;
 And, looking up, there fell on my face—
 Could it be drops of rain,
 Soft as the wind, that fell on my face?
 Gossamers light as threads of the summer dawn,
 Sucked by the sun from midmost calms of the main,
 From groves of coral islands secretly drawn,
 O’er half the round of earth to be driven,
 Now to fall on my face
 In silky skeins spun from the mists of heaven.

II.

Who art thou, in wind and darkness and soft rain
 Thyself that robest, that bendest in sighing pines
 To whisper thy truth? that usest for signs
 A hurried glimpse of the moon, the glance of a star
 In the rifted sky?
 Who art thou, that with thee I
 Woo and am wooed?
 That, robing thyself in darkness and soft rain,
 Choosest my chosen solitude,
 Coming so far
 To tell thy secret again,
 As a mother her child on her folding arm,
 Of a winter night by a flickering fire,
 Telleth the same tale o’er and o’er
 With gentle voice, and I never tire,
 So imperceptibly changeth the charm,
 As Love on buried ecstasy buildeth his tower,
 Like as the stem that beareth the flower
 By trembling is knit to power.
 Ah! long ago
 In thy first rapture I renounced my lot,
 The vanity, the despondency, and the woe,
 And seeking thee to know,
 Well was’t for me, and evermore
 I am thine, I know not what.

III.

For me thou seekest ever, me wondering a day
 In the eternal alternations, me
 Free for a stolen moment of chance
 To dream a beautiful dream
 In the everlasting dance
 Of speechless worlds, the unsearchable scheme,
 To me thou findest the way,
 Me and whomsoe’er
 I have found my dream to share
 Still with thy charm encircling; even to-night
 To me and my love in darkness and soft rain
 Under the sighing pines thou comest again,
 And staying our speech with mystery of delight,
 Of the kiss that I give a wonder thou makest,
 And the kiss that I take thou takest.

WINTER NIGHTFALL.

The day begins to droop,—
 Its course is done;
 But nothing tells the place
 Of the setting sun.
The hazy darkness deepens,
 And up the lane
 You may hear, but cannot see,
 The homing wain.
An engine pants and hums
 In the farm hard by:
 Its lowering smoke is lost
 In the lowering sky.
The soaking branches drip,
 And all night through
 The dropping will not cease
 In the avenue.
A tall man there in the house
 Must keep his chair:
 He knows he will never again
 Breathe the spring air.
His heart is worn with work;
 He is giddy and sick
 If he rise to go as far
 As the nearest rick.
He thinks of his morn of life,
 His hale, strong years;
 And braves as he may the night
 Of darkness and tears.

ERRATA. (corrected in this etext.)

Page 40, second line from bottom, for “discontinue,” read “disentwine.”

Page 51, third line from top, for “thy,” read “the.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For example, there is a passage in Dr. Parry’s recent work, “The Art of Music,” which will illustrate what I mean. It is in the chapter on Modern Tendencies. See especially, page 311.

[2] I omit the idea, the musical suggestion of which is a feat of genius, independent of style. The apprehension and exhibition of the mood is generally considered a simple matter, but really it affords a wide field for subtlety of interpretation. I have, for the sake of simplicity, assumed that in their choral music the older musicians altogether disregarded the speech inflection of the phrase; but this is not quite true, and since, especially in such words as they usually set, the speech inflection is often uncertain and unimportant, or altogether a nonentity, and would very well correspond with almost any simple musical expression of the mood, this distinction between ancients and moderns cannot always be seen, or will appear only as a difference of degree.

[3] Throughout these remarks I speak chiefly of the Ode. It is necessary in so wide a subject to aim at a definite mark, and while an ode happens to be in question, the Ode is also the example which is taken by Dr. Parry in the passage to which I have referred the reader.