Seven Sets of Seven Songs, Set V , opus 32

I woke to find my pillow wet	
  With the tears for deeds deep hid in sleep.	
I knew no sorrow here, but yet	
  The tears fell softly through the deep.	
 
Your eyes, your other eyes of dream,
  Looked at me through the veil of blank;	
I saw their joyous, starlit gleam	
  Like one who watches rank on rank.	
 
His victor airy legions wind	
  And pass before his awful throne --
Was there thy loving heart unkind,	
  Was I thy captive all o'erthrown?

Not the soul that's whitest
  Wakens love the sweetest:
When the heart is lightest
  Oft the charm is fleetest.
 
While the snow-frail maiden,
  Waits the time of learning,
To the passion laden
  Turn with eager yearning.
 
While the heart is burning
  Heaven with earth is banded:
To the stars returning
  Go not empty-handed.
 
Ah, the snow-frail maiden!
  Somehow truth has missed her,
Left the heart unladen
  For its burdened sister.

I did not deem it half so sweet
To feel thy gentle hand,
As in a dream thy soul to greet
Across wide leagues of land.
 
Untouched more near to draw to you
Where, amid radiant skies,
Glimmered thy plumes of iris hue,
My Bird of Paradise.
 
Let me dream only with my heart,
Love first, and after see:
Know thy diviner counterpart
Before I kneel to thee.
 
So in thy motions all expressed
Thy angel I may view:
I shall not on thy beauty rest,
But beauty's self in you.

I pitied one whose tattered dress
Was patched, and stained with dust and rain;
He smiled on me; I could not guess
The viewless spirit's wide domain.
 
He said, "The royal robe I wear
Trails all along the fields of light:
Its silent blue and silver bear
For gems the starry dust of night.
 
"The breath of Joy unceasingly
Waves to and fro its folds starlit,
And far beyond earth's misery
I live and breathe the joy of it."

Still as the holy of holies breathes the vast,
Within its crystal depths the stars grow dim;
Fire on the altar of the hills at last
    Burns on the shadowy rim.

Moment that holds all moments; white upon
The verge it trembles; then like mists of flowers
Break from the fairy fountain of the dawn
    The hues of many hours.
 
Thrown downward from that high companionship
Of dreaming inmost heart with inmost heart,
Into the common daily ways I slip
    My fire from theirs apart.

The lights shone down the street
In the long blue close of day:
A boy's heart beat sweet, sweet,
As it flowered in its dreamy clay.
 
Beyond the dazzling throng
And above the towers of men	
The stars made him long, long,	
To return to their light again.	
 
They lit the wondrous years	
And his heart within was gay;
But a life of tears, tears,	
He had won for himself that day.

Far up the dim twilight fluttered
  Moth-wings of vapour and flame:
The lights danced over the mountains,
  Star after star they came.
 
The lights grew thicker unheeded,
  For silent and still were we;
Our hearts were drunk with a beauty
  Our eyes could never see.