The Veil and other poems/Music

by Walter de la Mare

For works with similar titles, see Music.

MUSIC

O RESTLESS fingers—not that music make!
Bidding old griefs from out the past awake,
And pine for memory's sake.

Those strings thou callest from quiet mute to yearn,
Of other hearts did hapless secrets learn,
And thy strange skill will turn

To uses that thy bosom dreams not of:
Ay, summon from their dark and dreadful grove
The chaunting, pale-cheeked votaries of love.
 
Stay now, and hearken! From that far-away
Cymbal on cymbal beats, the fierce horns bray,
Stars in their sapphire fade, 'tis break of day.
 
Green are those meads, foam-white the billow's crest,
And Night, withdrawing in the cavernous West,
Flings back her shadow on the salt sea's breast.

Snake-haired, snow-shouldered, pure as flame and dew,
Her strange gaze burning slumbrous eyelids through,
Rises the Goddess from the wave's dark blue.