Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/187

CREOLE LOVER'S SONG Of the moonlit waters low,—

All things that to night belong

And can do my love no wrong

Bear her this hour for me.

Speed thee, wind of the deep,

For the cyclone comes in wrath!

The distant forests moan;

Thou hast but an hour thine own,—

An hour thy tryst to keep,

Ere the hounds of tempest leap

And follow upon thy path.

Whisperer, tarry a space!

She waits for thee in the night;

She leans from the casement there

With the star-blooms in her hair,

And a shadow falls like lace

From the fern-tree over her face,

And over her mantle white.

Spirit of air and fire,

To-night my herald be!

Tell her I love her well, 167