This is the sunless river
Whose births of foam and gold
Are drunk by huddling shadows
That loom across the wold.
Here, with pale marsh-things meeting
There is no sound of greeting,
Nor any dead heart beating
Beneath the flowerless mould.
I came from out a haven
Where silver lilies grow,
And all the day is breathless
For words it does not know.
One dusk I heard the luting
Of fairy trumpets, fluting
Sweet through the night-owl's hooting
And thrilling me to go.
Swift in the kissing twilight
I dipped and drifted down
Past dim; bird-haunted pastures
And past the red-lamped town.
For no winged wraith might stay me,
No siren-town betray me,
Nor night itself gainsay me,
Who sought the nameless crown.
Lo, where the river widened
And found the sounding sea
Blown reeds and rushes vanished
And were not friends to me.
And I was left lone-drifting,
With all the world grim-shifting,
And never night-cloud lifting
From that which was to be.
Oh, pallid closed the gleaming,
Dim green and gray. The white
Of sunken silver lilies
Is in the air like light.
Pallid the land is lying;
"Thank God," my soul is crying,
"Though all the world be dying
I found the flute that night!"
