Jephthah and Other Mysteries

THE FIVE KISSES. I. _ AFTER CONFESSION. AY startles the fawn from the avenues deep that look to the east in the heart of the wood : Light touches the trees of the hill with its lips, and _ God is above them and sees they are good : Night flings from her forehead the purple-black hood. The thicket is sweet with the breath of the breeze made soft by the kisses of slumbering maids ; The nymph and the satyr, the fair and the faulty alike are the guests of these amorous shades ; ‘The hour of Love flickers and falters and fades. Oh, listen, my love, to the song of the brook, its murmurs and cadences, trills and low chords ; Hark to its silence, that prelude of wonder ringing at last like the clamour of swords That clash like the wrath of the warring of lords.