The plunging of the purple seas;

My hope to find the mystic marge
Of all strange lands, the strange world o'er:
But bear me now to yon still barge,
Calm cradled by a tideless shore!

Wild birds, that cleave the crystal deeps
With May-time matins loud and long,
Oh, not for you my sick heart weeps!
Its pulses time not to your song!

But know ye where she hides her nest,
Beneath what balmy dropping eaves,
The Dove that bears on her white breast
The sacred green of olive-leaves?

Not when the Spring doth rosy rise
From white foam of the Northern snows;
Not when 'neath passion-throbbing skies
The fire-pulsed June in beauty glows:

But when amid the templed hills,
Deep drained from every purple vine,
Soft for her dying lips distils
The Summer's sacramental wine;

While all her woodland priests put on
Their vestures dipped in sacrifice,
And, as 'twere golden bells far swung,