The Little Salamander

TO MARGOT      When I go free,      I think 'twill be      A night of stars and snow,      And the wild fires of frost shall light      My footsteps as I go;      Nobody - nobody will be there      With groping touch, or sight,      To see me in my bush of hair      Dance burning through the night. VOICES      Who is it calling by the darkened river         Where the moss lies smooth and deep,      And the dark trees lean unmoving arms,         Silent and vague in sleep,      And the bright-heeled constellations pass         In splendour through the gloom;      Who is it calling o'er the darkened river              In music, "Come!"?      Who is it wandering in the summer meadows         Where the children stoop and play      In the green faint-scented flowers, spinning         The guileless hours away?      Who touches their bright hair? who puts         A wind-shell to each cheek,      Whispering betwixt its breathing silences,              "Seek! seek!"?      Who is it watching in the gathering twilight         When the curfew bird hath flown      On eager wings, from song to silence,         To its darkened nest alone?      Who takes for brightening eyes the stars,         For locks the still moonbeam,      Sighs through the dews of evening peacefully              Falling, "Dream!" SORCERY      "What voice is that I hear         Crying across the pool?"      "It is the voice of Pan you hear,      Crying his sorceries shrill and clear,         In the twilight dim and cool."      "What song is it he sings,         Echoing from afar;      While the sweet swallow bends her wings,      Filling the air with twitterings,         Beneath the brightening star?"      The woodman answered me,         His faggot on his back: -      "Seek not the face of Pan to see;      Flee from his clear note summoning thee         To darkness deep and black!      "He dwells in thickest shade,         Piping his notes forlorn      Of sorrow never to be allayed;      Turn from his coverts sad         Of twilight unto morn!"      The woodman passed away         Along the forest path;      His ax shone keen and grey      In the last beams of day:         And all was still as death: -      Only Pan singing sweet         Out of Earth's fragrant shade;      I dreamed his eyes to meet,         And found but shadow laid      Before my tired feet.      Comes no more dawn to me,         Nor bird of open skies.      Only his woods' deep gloom I see         Till, at the end of all, shall rise,      Afar and tranquilly,      Death's stretching sea.