A plaintive song, so strangely sweet and old,
That all my soul within itself would fold
And gently keep so quaint a melody,
That like a bird’ s its notes of liquid gold
Might oft repeat their sweetness unto me.
A tale of joyless splendor long ago,
Of wedded lady and of loveless woe,
How she to soothe her sick heart’ s misery
Cradled in vines her little child, and so
Sang of dear love beneath a greenwood tree.
And through it all there runs such saddest plaint,
As sweet as lutes, now murmurous, now faint,
Till, like the far-heard sighing of the sea,
It sweeps in gathering passion past restraint,
Then breaks, and croons in mournful minor key.
Ah, well-a-day! I listen breathless till
I half believe that sorrowing singer still
Dreams on divinely by the whispering tree;
For in your voice all tenderest heart-strings thrill,
And all the woodland’ s marvelous minstrelsy!