Craigcrook Castle By Gerald Massey |
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| XXI. |
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 | Craigcrook Castle |  |
VIII.
Now Sunset burns. A sea of gold on fire
Serenely surges around purple isles:
O'er billows and flame-furrows Day goes down.
Far-watching clouds with ruby glimmer bloom;
A scattered crowd, that on its face still wears
The splendid light and life of some brave show.
Dews swarm upon the flowers like silent bees,
And quiet fire-flies glittering in the grass.
Husht woods grow solemn dark; the blue peaks fade;
Weird mists rise white, and gracious Twilight comes.
Sweet is the mystery of her loveliness;
And all things feel her dim divinity.
Serenely surges around purple isles:
O'er billows and flame-furrows Day goes down.
Far-watching clouds with ruby glimmer bloom;
A scattered crowd, that on its face still wears
The splendid light and life of some brave show.
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And quiet fire-flies glittering in the grass.
Husht woods grow solemn dark; the blue peaks fade;
Weird mists rise white, and gracious Twilight comes.
Sweet is the mystery of her loveliness;
And all things feel her dim divinity.
“Now for a rouse within the house, and there
Shake off the purple sadness of the night,”
Cried one: “Come let us a Symposium hold,
And each one to the banquet bring their best
In song or story; all shall play a part.”
So, rapturously we hailéd lord o' the feast,
Our great Messiah in Midwifery, He
Who wrestled with the fiend of corporal pain,
And stands above the writhing Agony,
Like Michael with the Dragon 'neath his heel:
Who is in soul—Love riding on a Lion;
In body—a Bacchus crowned with head of Jove:
The keen life looks out in his lighted face
So fulgent that the gazer's brightens too:
He grandly towers above our fume and fret,
Like the old Hills whose feet are in the surge,
And on their lifted brows the eternal calm:
For he is one of those prophetic spirits
That are the World's night-dreams of things to come.
And thus he broacht our garrulous Hippocrene;
And round and round the chalice went till morn.
Shake off the purple sadness of the night,”
Cried one: “Come let us a Symposium hold,
And each one to the banquet bring their best
In song or story; all shall play a part.”
So, rapturously we hailéd lord o' the feast,
Our great Messiah in Midwifery, He
Who wrestled with the fiend of corporal pain,
And stands above the writhing Agony,
Like Michael with the Dragon 'neath his heel:
Who is in soul—Love riding on a Lion;
In body—a Bacchus crowned with head of Jove:
The keen life looks out in his lighted face
So fulgent that the gazer's brightens too:
He grandly towers above our fume and fret,
Like the old Hills whose feet are in the surge,
And on their lifted brows the eternal calm:
For he is one of those prophetic spirits
That are the World's night-dreams of things to come.
And thus he broacht our garrulous Hippocrene;
And round and round the chalice went till morn.
| Craigcrook Castle | |