 | Lays of France |  |
The slow cloud found it sweet to rest
Over each shadow-haunted tower
Of her lone castle, and to remain
Low brooding over that domain
Of deep autumnal wood and plain
And mirroring lake that she possest;
The sun and summer owned no flower
Down in the deep and wayward ways
Ruined and lost about her bower,
Whose desolation was the nest
Of a strange plaintive bird with crest
Of tarnished fiery feathers. Haze
Of changeless morn and noon was blue
Above the still blue of the lake,
Where, year by year, some long dream grew
More and more wonderful, and threw
A stranger spell over wild brake
And dripping mile of sallow sedge—
Where the dark bittern and the crake
Answered with lone unearthly cry,
Or spectral, on the oozy edge,
Some tall grey egret with wide eye
Stood slumbering. Not a troubled thought
Of toiling in the world, or deeds
Of living men, was ever brought
To break such magic as dreams wrought
In that dim region; but the reeds,
And redolent snakelike flowers, and weeds
Trailed in the wave, and songless bird,
With many a shadow thinly seen
And many a strange unseen thing heard
To wander up and down between
The desolate sedges with drear sound—
All were become unearthly, bound
In the enchanting solitude
Of some vast supernatural mood
Of sadness. All had learned the heart
Of Sarrazine; and every sore
Bewailing thought of hers was part
Of burdens that the silent things
Of wave and fen and feather bore,
On languid leaves and drooping wings,
In the blue stillness more and more
The haunt of cloud and dream.
Over each shadow-haunted tower
Of her lone castle, and to remain
Low brooding over that domain
Of deep autumnal wood and plain
And mirroring lake that she possest;
The sun and summer owned no flower
Down in the deep and wayward ways
96
Whose desolation was the nest
Of a strange plaintive bird with crest
Of tarnished fiery feathers. Haze
Of changeless morn and noon was blue
Above the still blue of the lake,
Where, year by year, some long dream grew
More and more wonderful, and threw
A stranger spell over wild brake
And dripping mile of sallow sedge—
Where the dark bittern and the crake
Answered with lone unearthly cry,
Or spectral, on the oozy edge,
Some tall grey egret with wide eye
Stood slumbering. Not a troubled thought
Of toiling in the world, or deeds
Of living men, was ever brought
To break such magic as dreams wrought
In that dim region; but the reeds,
And redolent snakelike flowers, and weeds
Trailed in the wave, and songless bird,
With many a shadow thinly seen
And many a strange unseen thing heard
97
The desolate sedges with drear sound—
All were become unearthly, bound
In the enchanting solitude
Of some vast supernatural mood
Of sadness. All had learned the heart
Of Sarrazine; and every sore
Bewailing thought of hers was part
Of burdens that the silent things
Of wave and fen and feather bore,
On languid leaves and drooping wings,
In the blue stillness more and more
The haunt of cloud and dream.
| Lays of France | |