The Poetry Corner

To A Castillan Song

By Sara Teasdale

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!