Six Sets of Five Songs Each for Voice and Pianoforte, Set V , opus 76

In a fair place
Of whin and grass,
I heard feet pass
Where no one was.
I saw a face
Bloom like a flower -- 
Nay, as the rain-bow shower
Of a tempestuous hour.
It was not man, nor woman:
It was not human:
But, beautiful and wild
Terribly undefiled,
I knew an unborn child.

No more: let there be no more said.
It is over now, the long hope, the beautiful dream.
The poor body of love in his grave is laid.
I had dreamed his shining eyes eternal, alas!
Now, dead love, I know, can never rise again.
Never, never again shall I see even his shadow pass.
A star has ceased to shine in my lonely skies.
Sometimes I dream I see it shining in my heart,
As a bird the windless pool over which it flies.
No: no more: I will not say what I see, there:
Sorrow has depths within depths... silence is best:
Farewell, Dead Love: no more the same road we fare.

Each love-thought in thy mind doth rise
    As some white cloud at even,
Till in sweet dews it falls on me
    Athirst for thee, my Heaven !

My Heaven, my Heaven, thou art so far!
    Stoop, since I cannot climb:
I would this wandering fire were lost
     In thee, white Star of Time !

I go where the sheep go,
With the sheep are my feet:
I go where the kye go,
Their breath is so sweet:
O lover who loves me,
Art thou half so fleet?
Where the sheep climb, the kye go,
There shall we meet!

We do not know this thing
By the spoken word:
It is as though in a dim wood
One heard a bird
Suddenly sing:
Then, in the twinkling of an eye
A shadow glooms the earth and sky,
And we stand silent, startled, in a changed mood.
It is but a little thing
The leaping sword,
When in the startled silence of changed mood
It comes as when a bird
Doth suddenly sing.
But thrust of sword or agony of soul
Are alike swift and terrible and strong,
And no foot stirs the dead leaves of that silent wood.