We lean’d beneath the purple vine,
In Andernach, the hoary;
And at our elbows ran the Rhine
In rosy twilight glory.
Athwart the Seven-hills far seen
The sun had fail’d to broaden;
Above us stream’d in fading sheen
The highway he had trodden.
His farewell crimson kiss he left
On clouds suffused with blushes:
One star beam’d down the dewberry-cleft
Across the mirror’d flashes.
From cliffs of slate the vintage call’d
In muffled leafage dusky:
And down the river grandly wall’d,
The grape reel’d ripe and husky.
We reach’d entwining hands to seize
The clusters round us glowing:
Our locks were fondled by the breeze
From southern sandhills blowing.
The long-neck’d flask was not unbent,
The globed green glass unemptied;
The god of honest pleasure lent
Young Love his powers, untempted.
Home-friends we pledged; our bridal-maids;
Sweet wishes gaily squander’d:
We wander’d far in faëry glades,
Up golden heights we wander’d.
Like King and Queen in royal bliss,
We paced a realm enchanted,
A realm rose-vista’d, rich from this,
Tho’ not from this transplanted.
For this Rome’s frontier foot endear’d,
Her armèd heel made holy;
And Ages grey as Time’s own beard,
Wreathed it with melancholy.
Old days it has that live in gleams
Of suns for ever setting:
A moth-wing’d splendour, faint as dreams,
That keeps the fancy fretting.
A gorgeous tracing dash’d with gloom,
And delicately dusted:
To grasp it is to spoil its bloom;
’Twas ours because we trusted.
No longer severing our embrace
Was Night a sword between us;
But richest mystery robed in grace
To lock us close, and screen us.
She droopt in stars; she whisper’d fair;
The wooded crags grew dimmer;
The arrow in the lassie’s hair
Glanced by a silver glimmer.
The ruin-rock renew’d its frown,
With terror less transparent,
Tho’ all its ghosts are hunted down,
And all its knights are errant.
The island in the gray expanse,
We watch’d with colour’d longing:
The mighty river’s old romance
Thro’ many channels thronging.
Ah, then, what voice was that which shed
A breathless scene before us:
We heard it, knowing not we heard;
It rose around and o’er us.
It rose around, it thrill’d with life,
And did infuse a spirit
To misty shapes of ancient strife:
Again I seem to hear it!
The voice is clear, the song is wild,
And has a quaint transition;
The voice is of a careless child
Who sings an old tradition.
He sings it witless of his power;
Beside the rushing eddies,
His singing plants the tall white tower
Mid shades of knights and ladies.
Against the glooming of the west
The grey hawk-ruins darken,
And hand in hand, half breast to breast,
Two lovers gaze and hearken.