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Carol and Cadence

New poems: MDCCCCII-MDCCCCVII: By John Payne
Payne, John (1842-1916)

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SONGBIRDS.
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THE BOOK OF DAYS AND NIGHTS.
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THE BOOK OF DAYS AND NIGHTS.
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THE BOOK OF BIRDS.
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THE BOOK OF BEASTS.
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LONDON VOICES.
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BALLADS AND ROMANCES.
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SONNETS.
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TIME AND TIDE.
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THE MINSTREL'S BOOK.
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SONGS OF THE MORROW.

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27.

Noon on the plain
Weighs like the cloth of gold that a king must wear.
Heavy and hot, benumbing body and brain,
It holds the air.
Cattle and sheep
Dream in the drowsing trance of the tyrant star;
Bound, save the corn, in the soul-compelling sleep
All creatures are.
Heedless of the heat,
Lifting their fearless fronts to the sun their sire,
The serried strait-ranked hosts of the waxing wheat
Ripen in the fire.
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Yet Summer's law,
To which all else in the world must bow, can nought
Hope's ruined harvest in me to raise or thaw
My wintry thought.
To my sad soul
Like are the breaths from South and North that come,
As, at all seasons, Earth at either pole
With ice is dumb.
Yet, as with her,
Still in my breast, 'spite age, youth's fire's aglow
And (as at pole and pole), volcanoes stir
Beneath the snow.
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