University of Virginia Library

FROM APRIL TO OCTOBER

I. BEAUTY

The beauty of the world, the loveliness
Of woodland pools, which doves have coo'd to sleep,
Dreaming the noontide through beneath the deep
Of heaven; the radiant blue's benign caress
When April clouds are rifted; buds that bless
Each little nook and bower, where the leaves keep
Dew and light shadow, and quick lizards peep
For sunshine,—these, and the ancient stars no less,
And the sea's mystery of dusk and bright
Are but the curious characters that lie,
Priestess of Beauty, in thy robe of light.
Ah, where, divine One, is thy veiled retreat,
That I may creep to it and clasp thy feet,
And gaze in thy pure face though I should die?

II TWO INFINITIES

A lonely way, and as I went my eyes
Could not unfasten from the Spring's sweet things,
Lush-sprouted grass, and all that climbs and clings
In loose, deep hedges, where the primrose lies
In her own fairness, buried blooms surprise
The plunderer bee and stop his murmurings,
And the glad flutter of a finch's wings
Outstartle small blue-speckled butterflies.
Blissfully did one speedwell plot beguile
My whole heart long; I loved each separate flower,
Kneeling. I looked up suddenly—Dear God!
There stretched the shining plain for many a mile,
The mountains rose with what invincible power!
And how the sky was fathomless and broad!

III. THE DAWN

The Dawn,—O silence and wise mystery!
Was it a dream, the murmurous room, the glitter,
The tinkling songs, the dance, and that fair sitter
I talk'd æsthetics to so rapturously?
Sweet Heaven, thy silentness and purity,
Thy sister-words of blame, not railings bitter,
With these great quiet leaves, and the light twitter
Of small birds wakening in the greenery,
And one stream stepping quickly on its way
So well it knows the glad work it must do,
Reclaim a wayward heart scarce answering true
To that sweet strain of hours that closes May;
How the pale marge quickens with pulsings new,
O welcome to thy world thou fair, great day!

IV. THE SKYLARK

There drops our lark into his secret nest!
All is felt silence and the broad blue sky;
Come, the incessant rain of melody
Is over; now earth's quietudes invest,
In cool and shadowy limit, that wild breast
Which trembled forth the sudden ecstasy
Till raptures came too swift, and song must die
Since midmost deeps of heaven grew manifest.
My poet of the garden-walk last night
Sang in rich leisure, ceased and sang again,
Of pleasure in green leaves, of odours given
By flowers at dusk, and many a dim delight;
The finer joy was thine keen-edged with pain,
Soarer! alone with thy own heart and heaven.

V. THE MILL-RACE

“Only a mill-race,” said they, and went by,
But we were wiser, spoke no word, and stayed;
It was a place to make the heart afraid
With so much beauty, lest the after sigh,
When one had drunk its sweetness utterly,
Should leave the spirit faint; a living shade
From beechen branches o'er the water played
To unweave that spell through which the conquering sky
Subdues the sweet will of each summer stream;
So this ran freshlier through the swaying weeds.
I gazed until the whole was as a dream,
Nor should have waked or wondered had I seen
Some smooth-limbed wood-nymph glance across the green,
Or Naiad lift a head amongst the reeds.

VI. IN THE WOOD

A place where Una might have fallen asleep
Assured of quiet dreams, a place to make
Sad eyes bright with strange tears; a little lake
In the green heart of a wood; the crystal deep
Of heaven so wide if there should chance to stray
Into that stainless field some thin cloud-flake,
When not a breeze the trance of noon dare break,
About the middle it must melt away.
Lilies upon the water in their leaves,
Stirr'd by faint ripples that go curving on
To little reedy coves; a stream that grieves
To the fine grasses and wild flowers around;
And we two in a golden silence bound,
Not a line read of rich Endymion.

VII. THE PAUSE OF EVENING

Nightward on dimmest wing in Twilight's train
The grey hours floated smoothly, lingeringly;
A solemn wonder was the western sky
Rich with the slow forsaking sunset-stain,
Barred by long violet cloud; hillside and plain
The feet of Night had touched; a wind's low sigh
Told of whole pleasure lapsed,—then rustled by
With soft subsidence in the rippling grain,
Why in dark dews, unready to depart,
Did Evening pause and ponder, nor perceive
Star follow star into the central blue?
What secret was the burden of her heart?
What grave, sweet memory grew she loath to leave?
What finer sense, no morrow may renew?

VIII. IN JULY

Why do I make no poems? Good my friend
Now is there silence through the summer woods,
In whose green depths and lawny solitudes
The light is dreaming; voicings clear ascend
Now from no hollow where glad rivulets wend,
But murmurings low of inarticulate moods,
Softer than stir of unfledged cushat broods,
Breathe, till o'erdrowsed the heavy flower-heads bend.
Now sleep the crystal and heart-charmèd waves
Round white, sunstricken rocks the noontide long,
Or 'mid the coolness of dim lighted caves
Sway in a trance of vague deliciousness;
And I,—I am too deep in joy's excess
For the imperfect impulse of a song.

IX. IN SEPTEMBER

Spring scarce had greener fields to show than these
Of mid September; through the still warm noon
The rivulets ripple forth a gladder tune
Than ever in the summer; from the trees
Dusk-green, and murmuring inward melodies,
No leaf drops yet; only our evenings swoon
In pallid skies more suddenly, and the moon
Finds motionless white mists out on the leas.
Dear chance it were in some rough wood-god's lair
A month hence, gazing on the last bright field,
To sink o'er-drowsed, and dream that wild-flowers blew
Around my head and feet silently there,
Till Spring's glad choir adown the valley pealed,
And violets trembled in the morning dew.

X. IN THE WINDOW

A still grey evening: Autumn in the sky,
And Autumn on the hills and the sad wold;
No congregated towers of pearl and gold
In the vaporous West, no fiend limned duskily,
No angel whose reared trump must soon be loud,
Nor mountains which some pale green lake enfold
Nor islands in an ocean glacial-cold;
Hardly indeed a noticeable cloud.
Yet here I lingered, all my will asleep,
Gazing an hour with neither joy nor pain,
No noonday trance in midsummer more deep;
And wake with a vague yearning in the dim,
Blind room, my heart scarce able to restrain
The idle tears that tremble to the brim.

XI. AN AUTUMN MORNING

O what a morn is this for us who knew
The large, blue, summer mornings, heaven let down
Upon the earth for men to drink, the crown
Of perfect human living, when we grew
Great-hearted like the Gods! Come, we will strew
White ashes on our hair, nor strive to drown
In faint hymn to the year's fulfilled renown
The sterile grief which is the season's due.
Lightly above the vine-rows of rich hills
Where the brown peasant girls move amid grapes
The swallow glances; let him cry for glee!
But yon pale mist diffused 'twixt paler shapes,—
Once sovereign trees—my spirit also fills,
And an east-wind comes moaning from the sea.