The young girl stood beside me. 
I Saw not what her young eyes could see: 
- A light, she said, not of the sky 
 Lives somewhere in the Orange Tree. 

- Is it, I said, of east or west? 
 The heartbeat of a luminous boy 
Who with his faltering flute confessed 
 Only the edges of his joy? 

Was he, I said, borne to the blue 
 In a mad escapade of Spring 
Ere he could make a fond adieu 
 To his love in the blossoming? 

- Listen! the young girl said. There calls 
 No voice, no music beats on me; 
But it is almost sound: it falls 
 This evening on the Orange Tree. 

- Does he, I said, so fear the Spring 
 Ere the white sap too far can climb? 
See in the full gold evening 
 All happenings of the olden time? 

Is he so goaded by the green? 
 Does the compulsion of the dew 
Make him unknowable but keen 
 Asking with beauty of the blue? 

- Listen! the young girl said. For all 
 Your hapless talk you fail to see 
There is a light, a step, a call 
 This evening on the Orange Tree. 

- Is it, 1 said, a waste of love 
 Imperishably old in pain, 
Moving as an affrighted dove 
 Under the sunlight or the rain? 

Is it a fluttering heart that gave 
 Too willingly and was reviled? 
Is it the stammering at a grave, 
 The last word of a little child? 

- Silence! the young girl said. Oh, why, 
 Why will you talk to weary me? 
Plague me no longer now, for I 
 Am listening like the Orange Tree.