Steamed all its odour forth, as it would pour Its soul before the mystery of love. 

 And I into the night had stolen forth, Oppressed, with pain or joy, I knew not which, Knew only that the blood throughout my veins Did run like liquid fire, head to foot I tingled with sensation, all my hair Stirred, as with separate life within itself; And as I plucked the flowers and wove them in, Purple and waxen, languorously sweet, They seemed anticipation of a touch Should make each thread of hair become a bird, Fluttering with outstretched wings. From off my breast I flung my garment back; the soft air wooed Like sleepy lips ere love is yet awake. Then, as I lingered in the dusky depths, All flower-shadowed, blacker than the night, Blacker than shadows cast by palace walls Upon a moonlit night, there, in that web Of close-knit darkness, suddenly there came The wonder unto me, the god, my love— Within mine ears there was a silver silence, And in my heart a golden burst of song, The darkness burned around me, with a light Born from the other worlds, and there he stood, Radiant, godlike, purple were his wings And splashed with fire, purply-black his hair And crowned with stars for flowers; in his eyes My soul sank into passion and was drowned. 

 

 CHORUS 

 Oh, what a pair of birds, Hidden among the leaves! He a god and she a maid, Deathless lips on mortal laid; (Nothing death retrieves.) 

 There a son of God And child of mortal seed Met and kissed as love with love; Oh the leaves were thick above, No stars saw the deed. 

 No stars, but the eye of God? Ah, perchance He saw How a god to mortal prayed And the fatal compact made 'Gainst eternal law. 

 Veiled and still the night. So, a fount of tears Springs at first unseen, unguessed, Till at last the flood confessed Gushes down the years. 

 Son of a son of God And the daughter of men too frail! Union of the nature's twain? Only sorrow and want and pain, Striving without avail; 

 Desire for wings of a god Tied to the will of a man; Memory of a boundless space, (Where stars and spheres their dance enlace) With the threescore human span 

 Hung like a bridge, in the gulf Of God's eternity. Oh a mind to know and a heart to crave Beyond the horizon of the grave To the bounds of infinity! 

 Yet ever Fate 

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