Three Early Songs

The Lady World
Is sleeping on her white and cloudy bed.
Like petals furled
Her eyelids close. Beside her dream-filled head
Her lover stands in silver cloak and shoon,
The faithful Moon.
So Love, my Love,
Sleep on, my Love, my Life, be not afraid.
The Moon above
Shall guard the World, and I my little maid.
Your life, your love, your dreams are mine to keep,
So sleep, so sleep.

All night I heard along the coast 
The sea her grief outpour; 
And with the dawn arose a ghost 
To haunt the furrowed shore.

And when from out the gray mist rolled 
The sun above the town, 
A shipwrecked sailor came and told 
Of how the ship went down.

Then did I sudden understand 
The sobbing of the sea, 
And of that white ghost on the sand 
I knew the mystery.

The river sleeps beneath the sky,
And clasps the shadows to its breast;
The crescent moon shines dim on high;
And in the lately radiant west

The gold is fading into gray.
Now stills the lark his festive lay,
And mourns with me the dying day.
While in the south the first faint star
Lifts to the night its silver face,
And twinkles to the moon afar
Across the heaven’s graying space,
Low murmurs reach me from the town,
As Day puts on her sombre crown,
And shakes her mantle darkly down.