Eight partsongs , opus 119

I have walked a great while over the snow,
And I am not tall nor strong.
My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,
And the way was hard and long.
I have wandered over the fruitful earth,
But I never came here before.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!
The cutting wind is a cruel foe.
I dare not stand in the blast.
My hands are stone, and my voice a groan,
And the worst of death is past.
I am but a little maiden still,
My little white feet are sore.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!
Her voice was the voice that women have,
Who plead for their heart's desire.
She came -- she came -- and the quivering flame
Sank and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.

Farewell, my joy! For other hearts the Spring,
For other eyes the roses; but for me
The iron gate, the shadowy cypress-tree,
The solemn dirge that cloistered voices sing.
Farewell, my joy! Alas, I loved thee well!
For no light matter had I let thee go.
I cherished thee in rain, and wind, and snow.
I bound thee to my breast with many a spell.
Hail and farewell, my joy! If I might give
To one sweet friend the rapture that I miss,
Read in her eyes that ecstasy of bliss,
Tho' death were in my own, I yet should live.

The lake lay blue below the hill,
O'er it, as I looked, there flew
Across the waters, cold and still,
A bird whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last,
The sky beneath me blue in blue,
A moment, ere the bird had passed,
It caught his image as he flew.

A green eye -- and a red -- in the dark.
Thunder -- smoke -- and a spark.
It is there -- it is here -- flashed by.
Whither will the wild thing fly?
It is rushing, tearing thro' the night,
Rending her gloom in its flight.
It shatters her silence with shrieks.
What is it the wild thing seeks?
Alas! for it hurries away
Them that are fain to stay.
Hurrah! for it carries home
Lovers and friends that roam.
Where are you, Time and Space?
The world is a little place,
Your reign is over and done,
You are one.

Well of blackness, all defiling,
Full of flattery and reviling,
Ah, what mischief hast thou wrought
Out of what was airy thought,
What beginnings and what ends,
Making and dividing friends!

Colours of the rainbow lie
In thy tint of ebony;
Many a fancy have I found
Bright upon that sombre ground;
Cupid plays along the edge,
Skimming o'er it like a midge;
Niobe in turn appears,
Thinning it with crystal tears.

False abuse and falser praise,
Falsest lays and roundelays!
One thing, one alone, I think,
Never yet was found in ink; --
Truth lies not, the truth to tell,
At the bottom of this well!

Come back to me my swallow
  And leave me not forlorn,
Into the woods I follow
  The footsteps of the morn.

I thread the rustling hollow
  Before the day is born,
Come back to me my swallow
  And leave me not forlorn!

The light was dark without thee,
  My bird of April days,
I almost came to doubt thee
  When thou hadst gone thy ways -- 

The sunshine round about thee -- 
  Into the land of rays.
The light was dark without thee,
  My bird of April days.

O the high valley, the little low hill,
  And the cornfield over the sea,
The wind that rages and then lies still,
  And the clouds that rest and flee!

O the grey island in the rainbow haze,
  And the long thin spits of land,
The roughening pastures and the stony ways,
  And the golden flash of the sand!

O the red heather on the moss-wrought rock,
  And the fir-tree stiff and straight,
The shaggy old sheep-dog barking at the flock,
  And the rotten old five-barred gate!

O the brown bracken, the black-berry bough,
  The scent of the gorse in the air!
I shall love them ever as I love them now,
  I shall weary in Heaven to be there!

Thy hand in mine, thy hand in mine,
And through the world we two will go,
With love before us [for]1 a sign,
Our faces set to every foe.

My heart in thine, my heart in thine,
Through life, through happy death the same,
We two will kneel before the shrine,
And keep alight the sacred flame.

My heart in thine, my heart in thine.