Three Songs

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
  He passed by the town, and out of the street,
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun,
  And waves of the shadow went over the wheat,
And he sat him down in a lonely place,
  And chanted a melody loud and sweet,
That made the wild-swan pause on her cloud,
  And the lark drop down at his feet.

The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee,
  The snake slipt under the spray,
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
  And stared, with his foot on the prey,
And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many songs,
  But never a one so gay,
For he sings of what the world will be
  When the years have died away."

There sits a bird on yonder tree,
More fond than Cushat dove;
There sits a bird on yonder tree,
And sings to me of love.
Oh stoop thee from thine eyrie down,
And nestle thee near my heart,
For the moments fly and the hour is nigh,
When thou and I must part,
My love! when thou and I must part.

In yonder covert lurks a fawn,
The pride of sylvan scene:
In yonder covert lurks a fawn,
And I am his only queen:
Oh! bound from thy secret lair,
For the sun is below the west:
For the sun is below the west:
For all are closed in rest,
My love! each eye is closed in rest.

Oh! sweet is the breath of morn,
When the sun's first beams appear;
Oh! sweet is the shepherd's strain,
When it dies on the list'ning ear.
Oh! sweet the soft voice that speaks
The wanderer's welcome home;
But sweeter far by yon pale mild star,
With our true love thus to roam,
My dear! with our own true love to roam.

Music, when soft voices die,	
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;
And so [thy]1 thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.