University of Virginia Library


112

SABBATH

I

All is repose,
Where swaths of summer, laid in hay-sweet rows,
Make musk the fields through which the pathway goes
Unto a woodland-wall where cedars dream,
And roses shred their petals, one by one:
Where, slumbrous silver, leaps a little stream,
Making a murmurous glimmer in the sun,
And on a log, a slender streak of gray
Against the noon, a small green heron stands,
Moveless as meditation.—Far away
Dreams seem to camp among the meadow-lands.—
Rest rules the day.

II

Night comes to woo,
Mid heaps of clovered fragrance, cool with dew,
And fields of flowers a gateway leads into,
Under the shadow of great chestnut trees
Where moonlight waits, a presence, that awakes

113

Cricket and katydid and sleeping breeze,
And shakes the attar from the wildrose brakes:
And now the darkness opens many an eye
Of firefly gold; and gowns herself in white,
Far-following veils of mist; and with a sigh,
Voluptuous-drawn, resigns her to delight.—
Love rules the night.