Short Poems

Let me a moment indite
Scenes that I witnessed one night:

My dog (the trustiest of his kind)
With gratitude inflames my mind;
I mark his true, his faithful way,
And in my service copy Tray.

“Faint-breathing music!
Beyond your peace are whispers
Haunting the darkness.
Far wandering music!
Into the shadows
Your chantings die.”

“Over my organ-keys in the darkness
Slowly, aimlessly, wander my fingers,—
Slowly, aimlessly, silently, wander my fingers;
And I remember the poignant you alone.”

“The music is silent now
In alien darkness.
And the Sidonian lute
Is silent in my soul.
Insupportable echoes
Drift from the alien darkness,
Crying of you,
Crying of you alone.”

“Sidonian lute!
Whose broken strings
Tremble in the darkness,
Echo in the darkness—
All other song grows mute
At your low murmurings,
Hushing my haunted keys
With dreams and silences.”

“Oh troubled music drifting down the twilight
With flutes and cymbals of some old confusion,
Lighting the darkness, striking across the darkness
With flame of voices and tumultuous breath!” …

“Music! Music!
I cannot wake you.
For the Sidonian lute
Has gone into the darkness;
And now my fingers on the lifeless organ
Fail; and I turn to memories alone.”

“Into the darkness dies the wandering music—
Into the darkness again dies the wandering music,
Echoing you, echoing you alone.”

Merie sungen the muneches binnen Ely
Tha Knut king rew ther-by.
"Roweth, knightes, neer the land
And here we thes muneches sang."