This autumn morning

This autumn morning is tired with excess of light,

and if your songs grow fitful and languid

give me your flute awhile.

I shall but play with it as the whim takes me, --

now take it on my lap, now touch it with my lips,

now keep it by my side on the grass.

But in the solemn evening stillness I shall gather flowers,

to deck it with wreaths, I shall fill it with fragrance;

I shall worship it with the lighted lamp.

Then at night I shall come to you and give you back your flute.

You will play on it the music of midnight

when the lonely crescent moon wanders among the stars.