Explore "The Valley of Music" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ I. Oh, cool as the flutter of fountains, / And fresh as the fall of the dew, / Wet as the hues of the rain-arch, / In that vale, is the dawn, when, o'er mountains, / Pearl-peaked and hyaline blue, / Through the Memnonian blue, / Her spirit, like music, comes slowly, / A music of light and of fire, / Leaving her footsteps in roses / There on its summits, while holy, / Fair on her brow is her tire, / Gemmed with the morning-star's fire.
/ II. And still as the incense of altars, / And dim as the deeps of a cloud, / Mystic as winds of the woodlands, / In that vale, is the night when she falters / In the sorrowful folds of her shroud, / The far-blowing dusk of her shroud, / By the scarlet-strewn bier of her lover, / The day, lying faded and fair / In his chamber of purple and vair. -- / When, above it, you see her uncover / Her star-girdled darkness of hair -- / Gold-hooped with the gold of the even -- / And for the day's burial prepare, / The spirit of night in the heaven, / O'er that vale, is most hauntingly fair; / So fair that you wish it were given / That you in the rays of her hair, / Might die! in her gold-girdled hair.