Oh, deeper in the silent house The silence falls; Only the stir of bat or mouse About the walls.
No cry, no voice in any room, No gust of breath; As if, within the clutch of doom, We waited death.
The King is dead; No longer now The cold eyes gleam Beneath his brow.
O cold, grey eyes, Wherein the light Of Love at dawn Seemed clear and bright,
No true Love burned Your cold desire, Which mirrored but My own heart's fire.
The King died yesterday.... Ah, no, he died When young Love perished long, so long ago; And on his throne, as marble at my side, Has reigned a carven image, cold as snow, Though all men bowed before it, crying: "King!"
Too late, too late the chains which held me fall; Rock-bound, I bade the victor-knight go by; And now, when time has loosed me from the thrall, I know not where he tarries, 'neath what sky He waits the winter's end, the dawn of spring.
Spring comes no more for me: though young March blow To flame the larches, and from tree to tree The green fire leap, till all the woodlands glow-- Though every runnel, filled to overflow, Bear sea-ward, loud and brown with melted snow, Spring comes no more for me!
Spring comes no more for me: though April light The flame of gorse above the peacock sea; Though in an interweaving mesh of white The seagulls hover 'neath the cliff's sheer height; Though, hour by hour, new joys are winged for flight, Spring comes no more for me!
Spring comes no more for me: though May will shake White flame of hawthorn over all the lea, Till every thick-set hedge and tangled brake Puts on fresh flower of beauty for her sake; Though all the world from winter-sleep awake, Spring comes no more for me!
I wandered through the city till I came Within the vast cathedral, cool and dim; I looked upon the windows all aflame With blazoned knights and saints and seraphim.
I looked on kings in purple, gold and blue, On martyrs high before whom all men bow; Until a gleam of light my footsteps drew Before a shining seraph, on whose brow
A little flame, for ever pure and white, Unwavering burns--the symbol of our love; And as I knelt before him in the night, He looked, compassionate, on me from above.
I heard a harper 'neath the castle walls Sing, for night-shelter in the house of thralls, A song of hapless lovers; in the shade I paused awhile, unseen of man or maid.