Edward Rowland Sill (Эдвард Роулэнд Силл)
Hermione
I THE LOST MAGIC WHITE in her snowy stone, and cold, With azure veins and shining arms, Pygmalion doth his bride behold, Rapt on her pure and sculptured charms. Ah! in those half-divine old days Love still worked miracles for men; The gods taught lovers wondrous ways To breathe a soul in marble then. He gazed, he yearned, he vowed, he wept. Some secret witchery touched her breast; And, laughing April tears, she stepped Down to his arms and lay at rest. Dear artist of the storied land! I too have loved a heart of stone. What was thy charm of voice or hand, Thy secret spell, Pygmalion? II INFLUENCES IF quiet autumn mornings would not come, With golden light, and haze, and harvest wain, And spices of the dead leaves at my feet; If sunsets would not burn through cloud, and stain With fading rosy flush the dusky dome; If the young mother would not croon that sweet Old sleep-song, like the tobin's in the rain; If the great cloud-ships would not float and drift Across such blue all the calm afternoon; If night were not so hushed; or if the moon Might pause forever by that pearly rift, Nor fill the garden with its flood again; If the worid were not what it still must be, Then might I live forgetting love and thee. III THE DEAD LETTER THE letter came at last. I carried it To the deep woods unopened. All the trees Were hushed, as if they waited what was writ, And feared for me. Silent they let me sit Among them; leaning breathless while I read, And bending down above me where they stood. A long way off I heard the delicate tread Of the light-footed loiterer, the breeze, Come walking toward me in the leafy wood. I burned the page that brought me love and woe. At first it writhed to feel the spires of flame, Then lay quite still; and o'er each word there came Its white ghost of the ash, and burning slow Each said: "You cannot kill the spirit; know That we shall haunt you, even till heart and brain Lie as we lie in ashes—all in vain." IV THE SONG IN THE NIGHT IN the deep night a little bird Wakens, or dreams he is awake: Cheerily clear one phrase is heard, And you almost feel the morning break. In the deep dark of loss and wrong, One face like a lovely dawn will thrill, And all night long at my heart a song Suddenly stirs and then is still.
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