Venetian Songs - Love's Voice

There are islands, there are islands
On the ocean's heaving breast
Where the honey-scented silence
Broods above the halcyon's nest;

Where the sands are smooth and golden,
And the flowers bloom, one by one,
Unbeloved and unbeholden
Save by the all-seeing sun. 

I shall ne'er with friend or lover
Wander on from glade to glade
Through those forests, or discover
Silvery fountains in the shade:

But another's foot shall linger
Mid the bowers whereof I dream,
And perchance a careless finger
Strew the roses on the stream;

Happier men shall pluck the laurel
For the tresses that they love,
And the passionate pale coral
Wreathe round brows I know not of.

Of all the mysteries wherethrough we move,
This is the most mysterious - that a face,
Seen peradventure in some distant place,
Whither we can return no more to prove
The world - old sanctities of human love,
Shall haunt our waking thoughts, and gathering grace
Incorporate itself with every phase
Whereby the soul aspires to God above. 
Thus are we wedded through that face to her
Or him who bears it; nay, one fleeting glance,
Fraught with a tale too deep for utterance,
Even as a pebble cast into the sea,
Will on the deep waves of our spirit stir
Ripples that run through all eternity.

Come forth; for Night is falling,
The moon hangs round and red
On the verge of the violet waters,
Fronting the daylight dead. 

Come forth; the liquid spaces 
Of sea and sky are one,
Where outspread angel flame-wings
Brood o'er the buried sun. 

Bells call to bells from the islands,
And far-off mountains rear
Their shadowy crests in the crystal
Of cloudless atmosphere. 

A breeze from the sea is wafted;
Lamp-litten Venice gleams
With her towers and domes uplifted
Like a city seen in dreams. 

Her waterways are a tremble
With melody far and wide,
Borne from the phantom galleys
That o'er the drakness glide. 

There are stars in the heaven, and starry
Are the wandering lights below;
Come forth! for the Night is calling,
Sea, city, and sky are aglow!

Love, felt from afar, long sought, scarce found,
On thee I call;
Here where with silvery silent sound,
The smooth oars fall;

Here where the glimmering water-ways,
Above yon stair,
Mirror one trembling lamp that plays
In twilight air! 

What sights, what sounds, O poignant Love
Ere thou wert flown,
Quivered these darksome waves above,
In darkness known! 

I dare not dream thereof; the sting
Of those dead eyes
Is too acute and close a thing
For one who dies. 

Only I feel through glare and gloom,
Where yon lamp falls,
Dim spectres hurrying to their doom,
And love's voice calls:

'Twas better thus toward death to glide,
Soul-full of bliss
Than with long life unsatisfied
Life's crown to miss.