Page:Hephaestus, Persephone at Enna, and Sappho in Leucadia.djvu/34

 :That bubbled by our door.
 * And then, perchance
 * (O anodyne for all dark-memoried days!),
 * To feel the touch of little clinging hands
 * And hold your child and mine close on this breast,
 * And croon it songs and tunes quite meaningless
 * Unto the bosom where no milk has been,
 * And fonder than the poolside flutings low
 * Of dreaming frogs to their Arcadian Pan.
 * There had I borne to you a sailor-folk,
 * A tawny-haired swart brood of boys, as brave
 * As mine old Phaon was, cubbed by the sea
 * And buffeted by wind and brume; and I,
 * On winter nights when all the waves were black,
 * In musing-wise had told them tales and dreams
 * Of Lesbian days, e’en though the words should sound
 * To my remembering heart, so far from home,
 * As mournful as the wind to imprisoned men;
 * —Old tales they should re-tell long ages hence
 * Unto their children’s children by the fire
 * When loud the dark South-West that brings the rain
 * Moaned round their eaves. And in more happy days
 * By some pale silver summer moon, when dim
 * The waters were—mysterious eves of dusk,
 * And music, stars, and silence, when the sea
 * Sighs languorously as a god in sleep—
 * Singing into my saddened heart should come
 * White thoughts, to bloom in words as roses break
 * And blow and wither and are gone; and we,