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III.
- I CHARGE you, O winds of the West, O winds with the wings of the dove,
- That ye blow o’er the brows of my Love, breathing low that I sicken for love.
- I charge you, O dews of the Dawn, O tears of the star of the morn,
- That ye fall at the feet of my love with the sound of one weeping forlorn.
- I charge you, O birds of the Air, O birds flying home to your nest,
- That ye sing in his ears of the joy that for ever has fled from my breast.
- I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most fair,
- That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels consumed by despair.
- O Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the waning of thee,
- A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let it be.
- Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extinguish, the flames of love’s fire,
- Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it, and breaks its desire.
- I rise like one in a dream when I see the red sun flaring low,
- That drags me back shuddering from sleep each morning to life with its woe.
- I go like one in a dream, unbidden my feet know the way
- To that garden where love stood in blossom with the red and white hawthorn of May.
- The song of the throstle is hushed, and the fountain is dry to its core,
- The moon cometh up as of old; she seeks, but she finds him no more.
- The pale‐faced, pitiful moon shines down on the grass where I weep,
- My face to the earth, and my breast in an anguish ne’er soothed into sleep.
- The moon returns, and the spring, birds warble, trees burst into leaf,
- But Love once gone, goes for ever, and all that endures is the grief.
