Feda with Other Poems Chiefly Lyrical. By Rennell Rodd ... With an Etching by Harper Pennington |
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REVERIE.
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 | Feda with Other Poems |  |
112
REVERIE.
An Italian Night.
Lonely here by starry midnight, with the springtide's mellow moon
Waning to the birth of summer's, and the May nights into June;
Chime of convent bells dies faintly down the moonenchanted air,
Leaves to nightingales the silence, waking music everywhere;
Through the dark of ilex shadows, where the fire-flies pause and pass,
Steal along with noiseless footfall on the violets in the grass!
Listen, listen, what mad rapture! and the song seems very near,
Moonbeams striking through the shadow light the woodland hollow clear
Where the antique marble Ceres stands serenely calm and cold,
Watching moon by moon for ever how her ilex trees grow old.
Sharp against the sky's blue twilight, heaving throat and drooping wings,
Little head uplifted starward, how it sings, and sings, and sings!
Thrice the deep-repeated sole-note, and a breathing space, and then
That wild ecstasy of answer, and the whole song through again.
And you did not fear the statue; have you watched it there so long
Night by night its still unheeding of the transport of your song?
Cold is she, of stone and heartless, underneath her ilex tree,
I am true, and warm, and loving, but you would not come to me;
We must stand far from you alway, wonder alway spring by spring,
What it is in starry midnight moves your little hearts to sing;
Stand apart for all our longing from these lonely lives of birds,
Never wholly know the secret of the song that has no words.
One there was in old Assisi, in the world they call him Saint,
Last of men who knew your language and made answer to your plaint;
Gentle spirits since have loved you, but the world's mistrust is more,
And we know not as they knew you in the golden time before.
Yet sing on, so I may hearken,—growing part with the still scene,
With the darkly waving branches and the stars that look between.
Waning to the birth of summer's, and the May nights into June;
Chime of convent bells dies faintly down the moonenchanted air,
Leaves to nightingales the silence, waking music everywhere;
Through the dark of ilex shadows, where the fire-flies pause and pass,
Steal along with noiseless footfall on the violets in the grass!
Listen, listen, what mad rapture! and the song seems very near,
Moonbeams striking through the shadow light the woodland hollow clear
Where the antique marble Ceres stands serenely calm and cold,
Watching moon by moon for ever how her ilex trees grow old.
113
Little head uplifted starward, how it sings, and sings, and sings!
Thrice the deep-repeated sole-note, and a breathing space, and then
That wild ecstasy of answer, and the whole song through again.
And you did not fear the statue; have you watched it there so long
Night by night its still unheeding of the transport of your song?
Cold is she, of stone and heartless, underneath her ilex tree,
I am true, and warm, and loving, but you would not come to me;
We must stand far from you alway, wonder alway spring by spring,
What it is in starry midnight moves your little hearts to sing;
Stand apart for all our longing from these lonely lives of birds,
114
One there was in old Assisi, in the world they call him Saint,
Last of men who knew your language and made answer to your plaint;
Gentle spirits since have loved you, but the world's mistrust is more,
And we know not as they knew you in the golden time before.
Yet sing on, so I may hearken,—growing part with the still scene,
With the darkly waving branches and the stars that look between.
For thou makest all times equal singing that same antique tune,
Thou, and these old trees and Ceres, and the star-orbs and the moon.
Who are these in long procession winding down the wooded hill,
Thronging noiseless on the twilight—and the bird is singing still?
Phantoms of the airy fancy, yet I see them near and near,
Ghosts that glide along the shadows—canst thou conjure spirits here?
Unfamiliar forms and faces—hast thou stolen these from time?
Re-arisen strange and lovely, dwellers of the world's young prime!
Garb and mien of pastoral people of the old Etruscan line,
Fathers of the grim-walled city on yon spur of Apennine!
They are gathering round the goddess, and thou singest undeterred.
Seest thou not the long procession—art thou too a phantom bird?
Wreathing ghostly garlands round her, and across thy song I hear
Clashing of the sacred cymbals and deep lowing of the steer;
And the maids unbind the fillets and their hair floats down the breeze,
Softly traced like summer moon-clouds on the darkness of the trees,
And the youths take up the reed-pipes, I can hear them shrill and strong
Blown across dim wastes of silence in the changes of thy song.
All the arms are straining upwards in the old sweet use of prayer,
Swells the spirit chorus loud and louder on the startled air!
Glides a shadow o'er the moonlight—where are all those spirits flown?
Waken, dreamer, from thy dreaming! for that voice was but thine own!
Waken, dreamer, from thy dreaming! thou hast scared the nightingale
Into deeper, leafier coverts far away along the vale!
Over yon mist-halo'd mountains grows a light that dims the star,
Havened in the topmost rock-crests, where the winter snows yet are;
Pales the blue to green and golden, hues that herald home the sun
Lingering yet on Asian waters—but his sister's reign is done;
I will mount up from the valley, through the olives and the vines,
Meet the sunrise on the mountains in the sweet scent of the pines,
Watch the morning mists roll upward from the silverwinding streams,
Summer grows and day dawns early, and the night is short for dreams.
Thou, and these old trees and Ceres, and the star-orbs and the moon.
Who are these in long procession winding down the wooded hill,
Thronging noiseless on the twilight—and the bird is singing still?
115
Ghosts that glide along the shadows—canst thou conjure spirits here?
Unfamiliar forms and faces—hast thou stolen these from time?
Re-arisen strange and lovely, dwellers of the world's young prime!
Garb and mien of pastoral people of the old Etruscan line,
Fathers of the grim-walled city on yon spur of Apennine!
They are gathering round the goddess, and thou singest undeterred.
Seest thou not the long procession—art thou too a phantom bird?
Wreathing ghostly garlands round her, and across thy song I hear
Clashing of the sacred cymbals and deep lowing of the steer;
And the maids unbind the fillets and their hair floats down the breeze,
116
And the youths take up the reed-pipes, I can hear them shrill and strong
Blown across dim wastes of silence in the changes of thy song.
All the arms are straining upwards in the old sweet use of prayer,
Swells the spirit chorus loud and louder on the startled air!
Glides a shadow o'er the moonlight—where are all those spirits flown?
Waken, dreamer, from thy dreaming! for that voice was but thine own!
Waken, dreamer, from thy dreaming! thou hast scared the nightingale
Into deeper, leafier coverts far away along the vale!
Over yon mist-halo'd mountains grows a light that dims the star,
Havened in the topmost rock-crests, where the winter snows yet are;
117
Lingering yet on Asian waters—but his sister's reign is done;
I will mount up from the valley, through the olives and the vines,
Meet the sunrise on the mountains in the sweet scent of the pines,
Watch the morning mists roll upward from the silverwinding streams,
Summer grows and day dawns early, and the night is short for dreams.
| Feda with Other Poems | |