Music in the Night, by Stuart Merrill

Music in the Night

Weary of that nocturnal silence
At which her love took fright,
The silent-souled Princess
Played a prelude on her lute of love.   In the maze of her wild disarray
Her silver-ringed fingers called up
Sleep-inducing strains
On the gold and silver strings.   She sang the slow cantilenas
Whose memory-laden languors
Tell of queens and ladies
Dying of all that they remember.   And through the room where the yellow moon
Gleamed on the edge of dagger blades,
Was heard, beneath the crimson of the throne
Heavy with the dagger’ s steel,   The rustling of her wild disarray
At the motion of her silver rings,
And the awe of sleep-inducing strains
On the gold and silver strings.

poems.one - Stuart Merrill

Stuart Merrill