WHAT THE VIOLINS SAID. 

 SONG. 

 "We 're all for love," the violins said.—SIDNEY LANIER. 

 Do I love you? Do I love you? Ask the heavens that bend above you To find language and to prove you If they love the living sun. Ask the burning, blinded meadows If they love the falling shadows, If they hold the happy shadows When the fervid day is done. 

If they love the living sun.

When the fervid day is done.

 Ask the blue-bells and the daisies, Lost amid the hot field-mazes, Lifting up their thirsty faces, If they love the summer rains. Ask the linnets and the plovers, In the nest-life made for lovers, Ask the bees and ask the clovers— Will they tell you for your pains? 

If they love the summer rains.

Will they tell you for your pains?

 Do I, Darling, do I love you? What, I pray, can that behoove you? How in Love's name can I move you? When for Love's sake I am dumb! If I told you, if I told you, Would that keep you, would that hold you, Here at last where I enfold you? If it would—  Hush! Darling, come! 

When for Love's sake I am dumb!

If it would—  Hush! Darling, come!

 

 

 WON. 

 Oh, when I would have loved you, Dear, The sun of winter hung more near; Yet not so sweet, so sweet, so sweet, The wild-rose reddening at my feet. 

 Your lips had learned a golden word, You sang a song that all men heard, Oh, love is fleet, the strain is long. Who stays the singer from her song? 

 Across my path the red leaves whirled. Dared I to kneel with all the world? How came I, then, to clasp you, Sweet, And find a woman at my feet? 

 

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