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."