Summer Song

    "Murmuring, 'twixt a murmur and moan,
    Many a tune in a single tone,
    For every ear with a secret true--
    The sea-shell wants to whisper to you."

    "Yes--I hear it--far and faint,
    Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint;
    Like the muffled sounds of a summer rain;
    Like the wash of dreams in a weary brain."

    "By smiling lip and fixed eye,
    You are hearing a song within the sigh:
    The murmurer has many a lovely phrase--
    Tell me, darling, the words it says."

    "I hear a wind on a boatless main
    Sigh like the last of a vanishing pain;
    On the dreaming waters dreams the moon--
    But I hear no words in the doubtful tune."

    "If it tell thee not that I love thee well,
    'Tis a senseless, wrinkled, ill-curved shell:
    If it be not of love, why sigh or sing?
    'Tis a common, mechanical, stupid thing!"

    "It murmurs, it whispers, with prophet voice
    Of a peace that comes, of a sealed choice;
    It says not a word of your love to me,
    But it tells me I love you eternally."