Читать книгу Poems, and The Spring of Joy - Mary Webb - Страница 33

Table of Contents

Hark! The wind in heaven’s tower

Moaneth for the passing hour.

Heaven’s tower is broad and high;

In its quiet chambers lie

Laughing lovers. Rose and apple

Are their cheeks. Pale shadows dapple

All the floors, by night and day,

From sun-ray and moon-ray

Shining through the hearted leaves

Of the dark tree that lips the eaves.

Where the topmost turret ends,

Grey as the parting word of friends,

Sadly sways a silver bell,

And evermore it tolls farewell.

In all weathers, feathered brown

As doves, moaning, up and down,

Hover the disconsolate

Souls that never found a mate.

But within, so safe, so deep

Lapt in joy, the lovers sleep,

Pillowed cool in violets, pansies,

Delicate hopes and tender fancies.

How should they, so closely lying,

With clasping limbs, hear the crying

Of the wind from north or south?

While they murmur, mouth on mouth,

The grievous bell they do not hear,

Every toll a silver tear;

Nor dream they that the mystic, tall

Tree whose leaves like shadows fall

And fill the tower with whispering breath,

Bears the purple fruit of death.