Chapter I: King and Queen

1.

The day has come; at last my dream unfolds
White, wondering petals with the rising sun.
No other glade in Love's world-garden holds
So fair a bloom from vanquished winter won.

Long, oh, so long I watched through budding hours,
And, trembling, feared my dream would never wake;
As, one by one, I saw star-tranced flowers
Out on the night their dewy splendour shake.

But with the earliest gleam of dawn it stirred,
Knowing that Love had put the dark to flight;
And I must sing more glad than any bird
Because the sun has filled my dream with light.

2.

Is it high noon, already, in the land? O Love, I dreamed that morn could never pass; That we might ever wander, hand in hand, As children in June-meadows plucking flowers, Through ever-waking, fresh-unfolding hours: Yet now we sink love-wearied in the grass; Yea, it is noon, high noon in all the land.

The young wind slumbers; all the little birds That sang about us in the fields of morn Are songless now; no happy flight of words On Love's lip hovers--Love has waxed to noon. Ah, God, if Love should wane to evening soon To perish in a sunless world, forlorn, And cease with the last song of weary birds!

3.

At dawn I gathered flowers of white, To garland them for your delight.

At noon I gathered flowers of blue, To weave them into joy for you.

At eve I gather purple flowers, To strew above the withered hours.

4.

She knelt at eve beside the stream, And, sighing, sang: "O waters clear, Forsaken now of joy and fear, I come to drown a withered dream.

"Unseen of day, I let it fall Within the shadow of my hair. O little dream, that bloomed so fair, The waters hide you after all!"

5.

"Is it not dawn?" she cried, and raised her head, "Or hath the sun, grey-shrouded, yesternight, Gone down with Love for ever to the dead? When Love has perished, can there yet be light?"

"Yea, it is dawn," one answered: "see the dew Quivers agleam, and all the east is white; While in the willow song begins anew." "When Love has perished, can there yet be light?"