Alas when thou went near I wish'd thee far
But now thy distance is a jangling pain
That all the harmony of life must mar.
All day I murmur, "Wilt thou come again?"
Unless thou wilt return, I sing no more;
A hawk o'er towers the songbird of my heart;
Leagues have I drifted on toward the shore of mute remorse

Since we were driven apart
For though to sing is more to me than breath,
If I might only sing one worthy song
Who sings beneath the basilisk eyes of death?
Or, worse than death, the hovering wing of wrong?

They have o'er me like a brooding mist
That beams the mountains in the morning light,
And blemishes the austered amethyst
Of pleasure's grapes with grey mysterious blight.
Alas when thou are near I wish'd thee far
But now thy distance is a jangling pain
That all the harmony of life must mar;
All day I murmur, "Wilt thou come again?"