O, happy soul, thy mouth at last is singing,
Drunken with wine of morning's azure deep,
Sing on, my soul, the world beneath thee swinging,
A bough of song above a sea of sleep.

2
Who is the lady I sing?
Ah, how can I tell thee her praise
For whom all my life's but the string
Of a rosary painful of days;

Which I count with a curious smile
As a miser who hoardeth his gain,
Though, a madhearted spendthrift the while,
I but gather to waste again.

Yea, I pluck from the tree of the years,
As a country maid greedy of flowers,
Each day brimming over with tears,
And I scatter like petals its hours;

And I trample them under my feet
In a frenzy of cloven-hoofed swine,
And the breath of their dying is sweet,
And the blood of their hearts is as wine.

O, I throw me low down on the ground
And I bury my face in their death,
And only I rise at the sound
Of a wind as it scattereth,