There breathes no song, there stirs no wing—
Mute is the bird, and still the bee;
Only the wind is wandering—
Wild Wind, is there no rest for thee?
Oh, wanderer over many flowers,
Have none of them for thee repose?
Go sleep amid the lime-tree bowers,
Go rest by yon white gelder-rose.
What! restless still? methinks thou art
Fated for aye to bear along
The beating of the poet's heart,
The sorrow of the poet's song.
Or has thy voice before been heard,
The language of another sphere,
And every tone is but a word
Mournful, because forgotten here?
Some memory, or some sympathy,
Is surely in thy murmur brought:
Ah, all in vain the search must be,
To pierce these mysteries of thought!
They say that, hung in ancient halls,
At midnight from the silent lute
A melancholy music falls
From chords which were by daylight mute.
And so the human heart by night
Is touched by some inspired tone,
Harmonious in the deep delight,
By day it knew not was its own.
