Silverpoints — Clair de Lune

CLAIR DE LUNE

How like a well-kept garden is your soul, With bergomask and solemn minuet!

Playing upon the lute!

The dancers seem But sad, beneath their strange habiliments.

While, in the minor key, their songs extol The victor Love, and life's sweet blandishments, Their looks belie the burden of their lays, The songs that mingle with the still moon-beams.

So strange, so beautiful, the pallid rays;

Making the birds among the branches dream, And sob with ecstasy the slender jets, The fountains tall that leap upon the lawns Amid the garden gods, the marble fauns.