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.