Summer Song

"Murmuring 'twixt a murmer and moan,
Many a tune in a single tone--
For every ear with a secret true--
The sea-shell wants to whisper to you."

"Yes--I hear it--far and faint,
Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint;
Like the muffled sounds of a summer rain;
Like the rustle of dreams to a weary brain."

"By smiling lip and fixed eye,
You are hearing a song within the sigh:
The murmurer has curious ways--
Tell me, darling, the words it says."

"I hear a wind on a boatless main
Sigh like the last of a vanishing pain;
On the dreaming waters dreams the moon
But I hear no words in the doubtful tune."

"If it tell thee not that I love thee well,
'Tis a senseless, wrinkled, ill-curved shell:
If it be not of love, why sigh or sing?
'Tis a common, mechanical, stupid thing."

"It whispers, it whispers, with prophet voice,
Of a peace that comes, of a granted choice;
It speaks not a word of your love to me,
But it tells me I love you eternally."

-- George MacDonald, Violin Songs and Other Poems