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Carol and Cadence

New poems: MDCCCCII-MDCCCCVII: By John Payne

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15.

Daylight dies;
Shadows rise
From the moors, the meadows and the sea:
In the twilight dim
Fades the thrush's hymn
And the merle is mute upon the tree.
Evening comes;
Darkness dumbs
All the voices of the earth and sky:
Only hill and hill
Each with other still
Speak in fading flashes far and nigh.

17

Silence grows,
As night flows,
In its tide engulphing East and West:
See, what is it rays
In the heavenly ways?
'Tis the moon-bird rising from her nest.
All, that late
Dumb was, straight
Quickens, at her coming, into speech;
In the silvered trees
Stirs the songful breeze
And the waves make music on the beach.
Nightingales,
In the vales,
Tell their tale of passion never old,
As the new May moon
For the shadows' shoon
Paves the glades and glens with paly gold.
What is this
That, in a kiss,
Earth's lips presses unto Heaven's above?
From the moon-stirred shades,
From the dells and glades,
Rises, many-voiced, a hymn of love.
Young or old,
Who so cold
Is of heart but must in middle May,
When the moon's at height,
Child-wise, for a night,
Put Life's painful lore from him away?

18

Who but must
Hopes, long dust
In the grave, feel stir in him with youth?
Who but what the Past
Taught him must off-cast
And Love's leasing take again for truth?
Through the land,
Hand in hand,
Let us fare beneath the silver skies.
In this world of hate,
When the ringdoves mate,
Who as they do are the only wise.
Who but fools
Of the schools
With Life's bitter learning fain would leaven
Ignorance the blest?
When the turtles nest,
Love the only law is under heaven.