Nocturne

MAIDEN! while thy fairy fingers
Free those prisoned harmonies,
While thy left hand gravely lingers,
And thy right skims o’er the keys,
Darting as hussars manœuvre,
Skirmishing in mazy drill,
Swift to scatter and recover
Order, at their leader’s will;

Dreamily I hear two voices:
One in fervent tones of prayer,
One that sparkles and rejoices
As a skylark in the air,
With so wild a jubilation
That its carol seems a taunt,
Till a sterner modulation
Drops it to the dominant.

Then a dialogue more tender,
’Twixt the wooer and the wooed,
Where the latter vows to mend her
Wayward petulance of mood;
And the manly voice responding
Breathes a rapture of content,
As through chords with joy resounding
Both in unison are blent.

Through the moonlit fir-trees, playing
Murmurously, the roving breeze
Kisses the white fingers swaying
Pensively, the ivory keys;
Cools my brow and soothes the beating
Of this scarred and crippled heart,
Still, despite experience, cheating
Me with fond delusion’s art.

Me it cheats with phantoms thronging
Dimly up from days of yore,
Shapes of loveliness and longing,
Dead and gone forever more;
And as wizards, from the ashes
Of the rose, evoke its grace,
I recall the spectral flashes
Of a once all radiant face!