This is Love's silent hour, before the tongue
Can find expression happy in a song;
Yet your sweet, generous lips shall have their hour,
Believe me, when my song comes back to power;
So shall those eyes, so dark, so warm, and deep,
That wake for me, and for all others sleep:
Meanwhile I do no more than sit and sigh,
Watching your movements with a greedy eye.

Those birds that sing so sweet in their green bogs,
Their season over, croak like common frogs:
My thoughts, I hoped, would like those nightingales
Sing sweet for you, but still my music fails;
My music fails, and I can only kiss
Your cheek and chin, and to myself say this -
There never was a thing so fair and bright,
By sun or moon, by gas or candle-light.