Robert Nichols

Here you will find the Poem The Naiads' Music: From A Faun's Holiday of poet Robert Nichols

The Naiads' Music: From A Faun's Holiday

Come, ye sorrowful, and steep 
Your tired brows in a nectarous sleep: 
For our kisses lightlier run 
Than the traceries of the sun 
By the lolling water cast 
Up grey precipices vast, 
Lifting smooth and waem and steep 
Out of the palely shimmering deep. 

Come, ye sorrowul, and take 
Kisses that are but half awake: 
For here are eyes O softer far 
Than the blossom of the star 
Upon the mothy twilit waters, 
And here are mouths whose gentle laughters 
Are but the echoes of the deep 
Laughing and murmuring in its sleep. 

Come, ye sorrowful, and see 
The raindrops flaming goldenly 
On the stream's eddies overhead 
And dragonflies with drops of red 
In the crisp surface of each wing 
Threading slant rains that flash and sing, 
Or under the water-lily's cup, 
From darkling depths, roll slowly up 
The bronze flanks of ancient bream 
Into the hot sun's shattered beam, 
Or over a sunk tree's bubbled bole 
The perch stream in a golden shoal: 
Come, ye sorrowful; our deep 
Holds dreams lovelier than sleep. 

But if ye sons of Sorrow come 
Only wishing to be numb: 
Our eyes are sad as bluebell posies, 
Our breasts are soft as silken roses, 
And our hands are tenderer 
Than he breaths that scarce can stir 
The sunlit eglantine that is 
Murmurous with hidden bees. 
Come, ye sorrowful, and steep 
Your tired brows in a nectarous sleep. 

Come, ye sorrowful, for here 
No voices sound but fond and clear 
Of mouths as lorn as is the rose 
That under water doth disclose, 
Amid her crimson petals torn, 
A heart as golden as the morn; 
And here are tresses langourous 
As the weeds wander over us, 
And brows as holy and as bland 
As the honey-coloured sand 
Lying sun-entranced below 
The lazy water's limpid flow: 
Come, ye sorrowful, and steep 
Your tired brows in a nectorous sleep.