Sara Teasdale — To A Castilian Song

WE held the book together timidly,     Whose antique music in an alien tongue     Once rose among the dew-drenched vines that hung Beneath a high Castilian balcony. I felt the lute strings' ancient ecstasy,     And while he read, my love-filled heart was stung,     And throbbed, as where an ardent bird has clung The branches tremble on a blossomed tree. Oh lady for whose sake the song was made, Laid long ago in some still cypress shade,     Divided from the man who longed for thee,         Here in a land whose name he never heard,         His song brought love as April brings the bird,     And not a breath divides my love from me!