Flower o' the thorn A book of wayside verse: By John Payne |
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THE HUSH OF DUSK. |
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 | Flower o' the thorn |  |
THE HUSH OF DUSK.
THE twilight thickens on the quiet trees:
Prone at Night's feet, an overlaboured slave,
With hands outheld the skirts of sleep to seize,
Tired London lies, whilst on the dead Day's grave,
Where the leaves sleep, unstirred of any breeze,
Darkness oblivion heaps of gladness and unease.
Prone at Night's feet, an overlaboured slave,
With hands outheld the skirts of sleep to seize,
Tired London lies, whilst on the dead Day's grave,
Where the leaves sleep, unstirred of any breeze,
Darkness oblivion heaps of gladness and unease.
44
The lamps of Heaven are hidden from our sight;
No sign is in the unresponsive skies.
The courses of the orbs, that wont to light
The dark hours' lapses with their set and rise,
No witness bear to Time's forgotten flight;
No least star pricks the pall of violet-vestured Night.
No sign is in the unresponsive skies.
The courses of the orbs, that wont to light
The dark hours' lapses with their set and rise,
No witness bear to Time's forgotten flight;
No least star pricks the pall of violet-vestured Night.
The laggard minutes lapse with faltering feet;
The city drowses in the darkling hush;
A boding silence broods on every street,
Such as bytimes at evening seems to crush
Out of Earth's flagging heart the vital heat,
Till in her veins the pulse of Life forbears to beat.
The city drowses in the darkling hush;
A boding silence broods on every street,
Such as bytimes at evening seems to crush
Out of Earth's flagging heart the vital heat,
Till in her veins the pulse of Life forbears to beat.
The world hath surely eaten of the lote;
On all its face a frowning silence weighs.
No step to hear is, not a cry, a note:
Time, as it were, for some betidement stays,
That shall the measure change of common rote;
The city's frenzied voice is frozen in its throat.
On all its face a frowning silence weighs.
No step to hear is, not a cry, a note:
Time, as it were, for some betidement stays,
That shall the measure change of common rote;
The city's frenzied voice is frozen in its throat.
The hush no kin hath with that other hour
Of quietness, that comes in latter June,
When sleep upon the city like a flower
Falls for the softness of the summer noon.
This hath no peace in it; but in the power
Of some expectance dread the world-all seems to cower.
Of quietness, that comes in latter June,
When sleep upon the city like a flower
Falls for the softness of the summer noon.
This hath no peace in it; but in the power
Of some expectance dread the world-all seems to cower.
Anon, as sudden as its stress began,
The straining thread of silence snaps in twain
And with its noise of many-mingling man,
Life's organ-voice vociferous, once again
The roar of London all its highways' span
Floods, like a torrent loosed from Winter's broken ban.
The straining thread of silence snaps in twain
And with its noise of many-mingling man,
Life's organ-voice vociferous, once again
The roar of London all its highways' span
Floods, like a torrent loosed from Winter's broken ban.
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Dreamer that I am, I cannot but misdoubt
Me lest some presage in that boding pause,
Some warning dwell, that is not given without
A cause, some sign, that by the secret laws
Of Life unknown may not be spoken out,
From the weird worlds that bound this world of ours about.
Me lest some presage in that boding pause,
Some warning dwell, that is not given without
A cause, some sign, that by the secret laws
Of Life unknown may not be spoken out,
From the weird worlds that bound this world of ours about.
Its moment-measured hush leads on my thought
To that eternally enduring one,
Which, when the Giant City's life-sands, brought
To their last granule, through Time's hourglass run,
Shall the remembrance whelm in seas of nought
Of all that there hath been done, suffered, said and sought.
To that eternally enduring one,
Which, when the Giant City's life-sands, brought
To their last granule, through Time's hourglass run,
Shall the remembrance whelm in seas of nought
Of all that there hath been done, suffered, said and sought.
Evenso, meseems, the wonted hush will fall
Upon the streets, the foreappointed day,
And we shall note it not or noting, call
It but the common case and go our way,
Till the dusk darken to a funeral pall
And in the graves of Night all-gendering bury all.
Upon the streets, the foreappointed day,
And we shall note it not or noting, call
It but the common case and go our way,
Till the dusk darken to a funeral pall
And in the graves of Night all-gendering bury all.
| Flower o' the thorn | |