Fair maid, your beauty sleeps on marble stone,
Yet warm spring color drapes upon your breast,
Whose rise and fall like splendoured kingly throne
Would overthrow all doubt you are at rest;
How delicate, how soft each gentle sip
Of morning air delighting of your tongue,
Playfully dancing over your sweet lips,
Flitting away to voice your slumbered song;
How sound you sleep, your tranquil dreams expressed
By chest upheaved in rhythms, gaily dressed.
Far far beyond awaking, do you roam
With kindred spirits through a leafy glade?
Nymphs born of elder days welcome you home
To bathe in springs beneath old forest shade;
They sing of love for when the world was young,
When forests grew unhindered o'er the land,
When each new day was blessed by endless sun,
When fertile earth knew naught of desert sand:
Your voice rejoiced to join their merry cheer,
My ears rejoiced with every song they hear.
Fair maid, I wonder will you e'er return,
Or will the dreaming keep you for its own?
My eyes behold your beauty, yet they yearn
For tho' you are still here, I am alone;
Bid farewell to the forests, to your kin,
Bid farewell to each cool refreshing stream,
Return to wear the beauty of your skin,
Your kin will wait in some forever dream:
But now I pray you'll wake, return to me,
To see the dreams my eyes reflect of thee.