 | Spindrift |  |
153
FRAGMENT.
Even as a strain of glorious music swoons
From rapture into rapture, till it dies
Of its own ecstasy, and, dying, leaves
The husht air all a-tremble with delight,
And faint with yearning;—so the glorious Day—
The long midsummer Day—had sunk to rest,
Through labyrinthine splendours manifold;
Leaving o'er heaven and earth the breathless hush—
Half joy, half sadness: glory writ on gloom—
That holds the nations when a Hero dies
For freedom on some nobly stricken field.
And the midsummer Night, like a proud queen,
Flusht, breast and brow, with passionate tenderness,—
Throned on the solemn purple of the hills,
In roseate darkness robed, and crowned with stars,—
Bent o'er his bier with fathomless eyes of love—
Dim with unwhispered memories of the Past:
Fond memories of the irrevocable Past!
While earth and sky and ocean held their breath
In reverence. Only by fits the sea,
As though impatient of the enchanted calm,
Like a chained monster in reluctant rest,
Gave out a weary moan.
From rapture into rapture, till it dies
Of its own ecstasy, and, dying, leaves
The husht air all a-tremble with delight,
And faint with yearning;—so the glorious Day—
The long midsummer Day—had sunk to rest,
Through labyrinthine splendours manifold;
Leaving o'er heaven and earth the breathless hush—
Half joy, half sadness: glory writ on gloom—
That holds the nations when a Hero dies
For freedom on some nobly stricken field.
And the midsummer Night, like a proud queen,
Flusht, breast and brow, with passionate tenderness,—
Throned on the solemn purple of the hills,
In roseate darkness robed, and crowned with stars,—
Bent o'er his bier with fathomless eyes of love—
154
Fond memories of the irrevocable Past!
While earth and sky and ocean held their breath
In reverence. Only by fits the sea,
As though impatient of the enchanted calm,
Like a chained monster in reluctant rest,
Gave out a weary moan.
How still it was!—
The prisoned night-moth in the blazoned pane
Had ceased to fret. And where the moonlight barred
The floor with gules and azure—for the moon,
Like a sweet thought within the brain, had bloomed
Upon the midnight—frisked the pattering mouse;
And in the belfroy overhead the click
Of the great clock meted with muffled throb
The pulse of silence.
The prisoned night-moth in the blazoned pane
Had ceased to fret. And where the moonlight barred
The floor with gules and azure—for the moon,
Like a sweet thought within the brain, had bloomed
Upon the midnight—frisked the pattering mouse;
And in the belfroy overhead the click
Of the great clock meted with muffled throb
The pulse of silence.
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