The blue waves are sleeping;
The breezes are still;
The light dews are weeping
Soft tears On the hill;
The moon in mild beauty,
Looks bright from above;
Then come to the casement,
Oh Mary my love.
Not a sound, or a motion
Is over the lake,
But the whisper of ripples,
As shoreward they break;
My skiff wakes no ruffle
The waters among,
Then listen dear maid
To thy true lover’s song.
No form from the lattice
Did ever recline,
Over Italy’s waters,
More lovely than thine;
Then come to the window
And shed from above,
One glance of thy dark eye,
One smile of thy love.
Oh! the soul of that eye
When it breaks from its shroud,
Shines beauteously but,
Like the Moon from a cloud;
And thy whisper of love
Breathed thus from afar,
Is sweeter to me
Than the sweetest guitar.
From the storms of this world
How gladly I’d fly,
To the calm of that breast,
To the heaven of that eye;
How deeply I love thee
’Twere useless to tell;
Farewell then my dear one,
My Mary, farewell.