 | The Poet and Nature and The Morning Road |  |
NIGHT'S REVELRIES.
Above the world,
Pale, dew-impearled,
Like lilies in blue pools of night,
The stars float white;
Enchantment is abroad with many a glowworm light
Of green and silver ... Look you! where,
With firefly-tangled hair,
She leans above the water there,
While, downy-winged, the great moon-moths take flight.
To me it would seem right
To see him now—Puck, brown and bare,
Upon that web a-sway,
Or sliding down a ray
Of starlight with some fair, attendant fay;
Or, on that toadstool's top astride,
Squatting with arms akimbo, mouth ear-wide,
And upright slits of flame instead of eyes,
Watching and waiting till the full moon rise.
Pale, dew-impearled,
Like lilies in blue pools of night,
The stars float white;
Enchantment is abroad with many a glowworm light
Of green and silver ... Look you! where,
With firefly-tangled hair,
She leans above the water there,
While, downy-winged, the great moon-moths take flight.
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To see him now—Puck, brown and bare,
Upon that web a-sway,
Or sliding down a ray
Of starlight with some fair, attendant fay;
Or, on that toadstool's top astride,
Squatting with arms akimbo, mouth ear-wide,
And upright slits of flame instead of eyes,
Watching and waiting till the full moon rise.
But what are those
So busy 'round that rose?
Those moth-like things,
And shapes, with beetle wings;
And there! snail-gray in frog-like-fitting clothes—
Where green that firefly glows—
Leaving a trail of silver, what are those,
Stilt-eyed and slow,
That come and go below
The rainbowed rows
Of morning-glory bells
And wine-stained shells
Of balsam blooms?
Do you suppose
That they are grooms,
Disguised, of Oberon? grim warders of his rooms?
Or fairy maskers that the Night
Sends through the goblin dusk
To tag with wet each mushroom's rim,
Or tap and trim
Each bud until it open wide its petaled tusk?
Or brim
Its cup with dew and musk?
So busy 'round that rose?
Those moth-like things,
And shapes, with beetle wings;
And there! snail-gray in frog-like-fitting clothes—
Where green that firefly glows—
Leaving a trail of silver, what are those,
Stilt-eyed and slow,
That come and go below
The rainbowed rows
Of morning-glory bells
And wine-stained shells
Of balsam blooms?
Do you suppose
That they are grooms,
Disguised, of Oberon? grim warders of his rooms?
Or fairy maskers that the Night
Sends through the goblin dusk
To tag with wet each mushroom's rim,
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Each bud until it open wide its petaled tusk?
Or brim
Its cup with dew and musk?
Let us steal near,
My dear.
Night's at her revelries
Among these flowers and trees.
Perhaps if we could seize
The moment, like those bees
So snugly huddled in that flow'r, we, too,
Might touch on things she dreams; and so behold
The invisible host, the crew
With which her heart makes bold
When all the world's asleep and no one looks,
Except the moon, who peeps in ferny nooks.
My dear.
Night's at her revelries
Among these flowers and trees.
Perhaps if we could seize
The moment, like those bees
So snugly huddled in that flow'r, we, too,
Might touch on things she dreams; and so behold
The invisible host, the crew
With which her heart makes bold
When all the world's asleep and no one looks,
Except the moon, who peeps in ferny nooks.
| The Poet and Nature and The Morning Road | |