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Dirge for Aoine and other poems

by Nora Chesson [i.e. Nora Hopper]

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A JUNE NIGHT
  
  
  
  
  


xxxii

A JUNE NIGHT

The moon is a vampire to-night. She has sucked from the stars
Their splendour of silver: they lean to us weary and white
Like prisoners' faces pressed pale against window bars,
And the wind is full of whispering dust to-night.
The roads are spread thickly with velvet that no one may hear
Coming or going of June: shattered topaz and pearl
Of the chestnuts are shed underfoot, and disappear
In dust that follows men's feet and the wheels that whirl.
There's a ghost by the hedge that by day is a blossoming elder:
A dusty and breathless scent is blown down to me
Out of the laurustinus. The sun-smitten guelder
Drops her last snowball, and droops as a barren tree.