Posthumous Poems/Echo

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

ECHO

In the dusk of starlit hours
Thro' the woodland's dewy maze
Scattering music, scattering flowers
Down the glimmering forest ways,
O'er the smooth moss-paven level,
Past the mountain's windy brow,
Come the Nymphs in crowded revel,
Calling, Echo, Echo! where art thou?

By the far and misty glimmer
Of these pale Lethean lakes,
Whose dusk waves in twilight shimmer
When the faint Sun on them breaks,
Where no sorrowing thoughts appal thee,
Hast thou sought a place of sleep
Heeding not how loud we call thee—
Echo, Echo!—thro' the woodlands deep?

We have sought thee till the Hours,
Slowly darkening to the west,
Left thee turning funeral flowers
In some haunt of dreary rest,
Where the cloud of dewy tresses
On thy wan and downcast brow
Like a weight of sorrow presses;
Call aloud, Echo! Echo! where art thou?

In the soft green summer-meadows
Where the silent streams are flowing
In the happy woodland shadows
Where the softest winds are blowing,
Where amid their heapèd flowers
Children call thee soft and low,
In the hush of golden hours
Singing, Echo, Echo! where art thou?

When the wind-vext earth returneth
To the light of stormless days,
And the wide noon-splendour burneth
On the lustrous ocean-ways,
Still thou sittest weeping lowly
In the dim heart of the brakes,
In the silence wide and holy—
Echo, Echo!—which the deep wood makes.

Echo, Echo! we are weary
And the forest-path is long,
And the brightest glades are dreary
If unwaken'd by thy song.
Hark! her voice afar is singing—
O our sister, where art thou?
All the joyous words are ringing;
Be with us, Echo! Echo! hear us now.

 Oxford.