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Carol and Cadence

New poems: MDCCCCII-MDCCCCVII: By John Payne

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MAY INTRA MUROS.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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 VII. 
 VIII. 
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 XII. 
 XIII. 
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90

MAY INTRA MUROS.

Blithe to behold
Is the glittering blossoming rain of the rathe laburnum-gold
In May,
When the wakening world hath forgotten the frost-time grey
And the woes of the winter cold.
The lilacs are robed like princes in purple and red and white
And the wandering airs are drunk with the wine of delight
Of the new Spring day.
Old London shines;
The lindens lighten the ways with their shimmering sun-shot lines
Of green;
The grey town basks in the bath of the sunlight sheen;
Hope hangs out the shining signs
Of Summer to come on every tree:—Rejoice, old soul!
There is nothing so sweet as the season when Summer's goal
Through Spring is seen.
Lush to the brim
With blossom, my little garden glows in the grip of the grim
Old walls,
Like a white thought mured in a dream of misery dim.
Without, Life blusters and brawls:
But here is a haven of pleasance and boscage and peace and balm,
Where the thrush and the blackbird flute in the mid-Spring calm
And the cuckoo calls.
The soft hours pass;
They lapse, like a summer sea, o'er me, as I lie on the grass,
Not fast,
But slow as a happy dream that is sweet to the last.
A wine of peace in Life's glass
They pour, the wine of a wish that is sure, though unfulfilled,
In the brimming bowl of a Future yet unspilled
By a Now, half Past.

91

Sing, throstle, sing!
Thy song is the tale in tune of the peartree's blossoming;
And I,
As thy notes float up and blend with the lark's in the sky,
My soul on the tune takes wing
To the fields of Fable and Faith, where sorrow is not nor strife,
Where Death is a dream of the dark and given is life
To live, not die.