Under The Rose

He told a story to her,     A story old yet new     And was it of the Fary Folk     That dance along the dew?     The night was hung with silence     As a room is hung with cloth,     And soundless, through the rose-sweet hush,     Swooned dim the down-white moth.     Along the east a shimmer,     A tenuous breath of flame,     From which, as from a bath of light,     Nymph-like, the girl-moon came.     And pendent in the purple     Of heaven, like fireflies,     Bubbles of gold the great stars blew     From windows of the skies.     He told a story to her,     A story full of dreams     And was it of the Elfin things     That haunt the thin moonbeams?     Upon the hill a thorn-tree,     Crooked and gnarled and gray,     Against the moon seemed some crutch'd hag     Dragging a child away.     And in the vale a runnel,     That dripped from shelf to shelf,     Seemed, in the night, a woodland witch     Who muttered to herself.     Along the land a zephyr,     Whose breath was wild perfume,     That seemed a sorceress who wove     Sweet spells of beam and bloom.     He told a story to her,     A story young yet old     And was it of the mystic things     Men's eyes shall ne'er behold?     They heard the dew drip faintly     From out the green-cupped leaf;     They heard the petals of the rose     Unfolding from their sheaf.     They saw the wind light-footing     The waters into sheen;     They saw the starlight kiss to sleep     The blossoms on the green.     They heard and saw these wonders;     These things they saw and heard;     And other things within the heart     For which there is no word.     He told a story to her,     The story men call Love,     Whose echoes fill the ages past,     And the world ne'er tires of.