Three Songs for a high voice and piano

If life were but a dream, my Love,
  And death the waking time;
If day had not a beam, my Love,
  And night had not a rhyme, -- 
    A barren, barren world were this
    Without one saving gleam;
    I 'd only ask that with a kiss
    You'd wake me from the dream.

If dreaming were the sum of days,
  And loving were the bane;
If battling for a wreath of bays
  Could soothe a heart in pain, -- 
    I'd scorn the meed of battle's might,
    All other aims above
    I'd choose the human's higher right,
    To suffer and to love!

She does not know
her beauty,
she thinks her brown body
has no glory.

If she could dance
naked
under palm trees
and see her image in the river,
she would know.

But there are no palm trees
on the street,
and dish water gives back
no images.

What says the wind to the waving trees?
   What says the wave to the river?
What means the sigh in the passing breeze?
   Why do the rushes quiver?
Have you not heard the fainting cry
Of the flowers that said "Good-bye, good-bye"?

List how the gray dove moans and grieves
   Under the woodland cover;
List to the drift of the falling leaves,
   List to the wail of the lover.
Have you not caught the message heard
Already by wave and breeze and bird?

Come, come away to the river's bank,
   Come in the early morning;
Come when the grass with dew is dank,
   There you will find the warning --
A hint in the kiss of the quickening air
Of the secret that birds and breezes bear.